Antique & Vintage Postcards

Standing barefoot on a salt-bleached dock plank with the Pacific glittering behind him, Everett cuts a confident figure in his dark wool tank suit with its crisp white-striped waistband — a champion breath-hold diver whose underwater record of 3 minutes 15 seconds at a depth of 56 feet made him a celebrity attraction at Catalina Island, California. This real-photo postcard is captioned in neat handwriting directly on the image: "Everett Adargo / Native Diver / Catalina, Isl. Cal." The reverse, formatted in Gothic "Post Card" type with a blank stamp box and undivided-style address area, is headed "What We Saw at Catalina" and itemizes in remarkable detail the marine specimens visible through the island's famed crystal waters: dozens of kelp, moss, fern, fish, and shellfish species from Ribbon Kelp and Rainbow Kelp to Garibaldi Perch, Leopard Shark, and Moray Eel. A vivid document of early 20th-century tourism, marine natural history, and athletic spectacle at one of California's most beloved destinations.