Antique & Vintage Postcards

Dated August 15, 1935 — the very day Will Rogers and aviator Wiley Post perished in an Alaskan plane crash — this poignant linen memorial card captures the beloved humorist and radio personality mid-smile beside a broadcast microphone, paired above with an image of his birthplace homestead 12 miles northwest of Claremore, Oklahoma. The elegiac poem printed between the two images, signed "T.W.H.," mourns Rogers with lines like "The newspapers all seem dull / without Will's quips in the corner / and him grinnin' just above," capturing the national grief that followed the sudden loss of one of America's most beloved public figures. The caption "Well Folks My Time's Up" — Rogers's signature radio sign-off rendered in final, bittersweet irony — makes this card a deeply collectible piece of Americana. Published by Oklahoma News Co. of Tulsa and printed by Curteich Chicago as a "C.T. American Art" card, it remains unused, with a clean back.