I made a personal discovery last Saturday which has left me very excited about post cards, of all things!

I went into one of the Birmingham, England branches of Waterstones Bookstore, an enormous Victorian building which used to be a bank, to take a look at their range of journals, and found a small range of items made by Cavallini Papers & Co., Inc. of San Francisco.

Well what caught my eye immediately were two things - a small notebook similar to a Moleskine, but with cover consisting of a reproduction of a vintage New York post card, and a tin box of various designs of beautifully reproduced vintage post cards, also of various views of New York. Great! I bought a notebook and a tin of these cards, naturally

What really excited me, however, as a Nakaya and Danitrio owner, was discovering later that day on the website of Cavalini and on that of the UK company Papernation (URLs below) a much wider range of such cards and other similar products, amongst which was a set of 18 (3 each of 6 designs) gorgeous reproduction Japanese postcards of the early 20th century with designs selected from Hiroshige's classic 36 woodblock views of Mount Fuji (created in 1858). Each card was 4.5" x 6.5".

The cost of a set (tin) of cards from Papernation was £6.99 (no doubt these are cheaper in the USA like most things!) plus postage. I immediately ordered two tins of these cards, one set to keep and one set to send out to postcarding FPNers using the Mikado or the Nakaya according to my mood

Anyway, when the cards arrived I found that, as with the cards of NY, they were printed on a lovely matte cream card, perfect for fountain pen use. I have just christened the first of these 'vintage' cards using my Mikado and Montblanc Blue-black, and the experience was sublime compared to the struggle one usually has when writing on shiny modern postcards aimed at the ballpoint fraternity . The beneficiary of this first card is FredRydr (Fred Huganir, of Pennsylvania).

So, I thought I'd share this little experience with FPNers, and let you know that not only is it possible to obtain superb 'vintage' postcards to use today, but that they work extremely well with that most 'vintage' of writing instruments, the fountain pen.

Now I can just feel a trip to New York coming on, so I can send some of those other great postcards back here to England. Naturally, I'll have to buy a Parker Vacumatic to write them, of course

- Stuart

PS on a technical note, compared to the online pictures shown here, the colours of the actual cards are somewhat darker and more intense in the flesh. Your Monitor May Vary!


http://www.cavallini.com
http://www.cavallini.com/products.html

http://www.papernation.co.uk/catalog/caval...CFRaHMAodk3US6w

The original 36 views: http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/36_v...8/fuji_1858.htm







'Vintage' Japanese post cards by Cavallini & Co., Inc.
'Long cigar' Tamenuri by Nakaya.
Mikado Tamenuri by Danitrio.
Photos by Rincewind.

Wow, very nice cards! I like the tin, too. I'd buy the cards just for the tin if I can find it.

Cards? What cards? I must have fogged up my monitor drooling over those gorgeous pens!

This just goes to show how people focus on different things, for whatever reason: Taki on the post cards, Lloyd on the pens, and my eyes caught the pen rest. And, I haven't a clue why, because none of my pens really need a pen rest.

The photos are lovely. Thank you for sharing them and for providing the links!

Thanks for the interest folks, I was delighted to discover these cards for myself. If others can now also do so as a result, it makes that discovery even more pleasurable for me! Glad to know you also like the pens and the pen rest - it is a nice bit of wood.

I agree with Taki about the hinged tins - they are great for keeping stamps, received cards and other flat items in, and look superb with the textured matte chrome plate finish and applied design in the same material as the cards.

Almost as fascinating are the other 'vintage' cards in the 'Carte Postale' series from Cavallini, which include in addition to the Japanese and NYC cards already mentioned, those of old San Francisco and Paris, animals from around the globe, botanica and birds, amongst others like old Italy, natural history, natural wonders, old maps, and general vintage postcards. All great fun!

I found these online just now for those of us in the States - wow! Wonderful subjects! I print my own postcards in the darkroom, but they don't do well with fountain pens. These look like just the thing to fill that need! Thanks for bringing them up

- R

Well spotted Randy - and the prices seem to be the same as ours so that's fair I suppose.

- Stuart