Antique & Vintage Postcards

Autumn gold blazes through birch and oak above a tranquil reed-fringed pool at Fritton Decoy in Norfolk, England — one of the oldest working duck decoys in Britain — in this richly toned Raphael Tuck & Sons "Oilette" art card, the painted surface given a distinctive raised texture that mimics oil-on-canvas brushwork. A traditional pipe-and-net decoy tunnel arches over the calm water while mallards drift undisturbed, the whole scene anchored by a Shakespeare quotation printed below: "Ah! That deceit should steal such gentle shapes!" — a wry nod to the decoy's centuries-old practice of luring wild fowl to their capture. The back identifies this as card XVII from the "Norfolk Broads" Plate-Marked Oilette series No. 9708, published by Tuck "By Appointment" as Art Publishers to the King and Queen, confirming an Edwardian-era printing before 1910. Never mailed, this card retains its clean, fresh back and sharp image with no address or postmark — a true mint collector's example of one of Edwardian England's most prestigious postcard series.