Antique & Vintage Postcards

Perched at the edge of a dramatic limestone escarpment in New York State — the caption fragment reads "…m's Point, N.Y." — this real-photo postcard from August 20, 1907 shows a breathtaking sheer cliff face with a thin ladder trail creeping along its base, the kind of vertiginous overlook that drew Victorian and Edwardian day-trippers by the trainload. What makes this card extraordinary is the top margin, inked with the names of seven visitors who stood at this spot together: a multigenerational party of friends and family including Martha, Artens, Johanna, Lulu, and Edw., surnames suggesting Dutch-German New York heritage. Postmarked from Payne Bush, N.Y. on August 21, 1907 and addressed to Mrs. M. von Fortun at 1155 Boston Road, Bronx, N.Y.C., it is a vivid social document of an Edwardian summer outing. The 1-cent Franklin stamp, Scott #300, anchors the card firmly in the golden age of the postcard craze.