Antique & Vintage Postcards

A pair of open-platform electric trams glide along the broad, sandy expanse of the Amstelveenscheweg in what was then a newly developed residential quarter of Amsterdam, their tracks curving past brick apartment blocks of handsome late-Victorian character while a lone tree stands sentinel on the right and pedestrians in Edwardian dress dot the unpaved margins — a fleeting snapshot of the city as it pushed southward in the years just before the First World War. The hand-tinted halftone print, card number 241, was produced by an unidentified Dutch publisher and captures a streetscape that today is still recognizable, though the trams have long since been rerouted. The card was never mailed — the "Aan" (To) field on the divided-back is blank — making it a clean, unwritten example of early Amsterdam topographic postal ephemera. A penciled "Net" and the dealer price "75" appear in the upper corners of the reverse, suggesting it passed through a collector's stock at some point.