Paper & ephemera
Although postcard collecting and trading was so popular in the Edwardian era that some newspapers called it a “mania,” interest in the hobby (and the business) plummeted after the First World War (1914–1918). There were several reasons for this. The increase in the number of telephones in society definitely had an impact on the postcard use. After all, why send messages through the mail when you could pick up the phone? (Ironically, we’re now using phones to send text messages.) But the imposition of the war tax stamp in 1915 appears to have be
5 min read · From the archive