New Zealanders became keen on the postcard craze comparatively early. The first pictorial postcard was brought out by the Post Office in December 1897. Boasting four beautifully drawn vignettes of well-known scenes, it was printed by Waterlow and Sons in London.
This book explains that the Post Office wanted to
cash in on the postcard craze that began in Germany in the late 1880s and quickly spread to the rest of the world.
The first pictorial postcards printed in New Zealand came out around 1890, although most of them were monochrome. By 1903 "the quantities being purchased and sent through the post were substantial enough to occasion comment in the daily press".
Over the next few years, collecting and exchanging postcards "became a veritable craze in New Zealand, as it had become all over the world ... There was a collector in almost every family, often several.
"Relatives, friends and correspondents co-operated in providing more and more cards for the special albums designed to display them in the drawing-room for the edification and amusement of the family and every visitor".
The craze faded with the advent of World War II - not least because Germany had been the centre of the postcard trade - and never really recovered when peace returned.
But Main and Jackson, both avid collectors, are happy to report a modest revival of the hobby in recent times, a process their book is intended to facilitate.
Their section on early New Zealand postcards - because many were printed in Germany they were often wrongly labelled "New-Seeland" - is well worth reading, if only to find out if you have a treasure-trove in those old family albums.
Equally intriguing is their description of the categories of local cards most often collected - advertising, churches, comics, disasters, royalty, shipwrecks - which between them make up a fascinating perspective on our history.
There are also sections on those photographers and printers whose work is highly sought after. If you're interested in collecting in a formal way, this book is a great place to start.
And even if you have no intention of collecting, it's an interesting account of a hobby intertwined with New Zealand's development as a country.
* NZ Postcard Society, $25
