War Emergency Rate On Postcards

On Nov. 2 1917, the postage rate for postcards became 2 cents as part of the War Emergency rate. I'm not really sure why I have so few postcards from this time period, but suspect that it may have something to do with the flu pandemic that swept the nation from Jan 1918 to Dec 1920. At any rate ( pun intended ) I only have eight postcards for this period. Of course, remember that I only collect postmarks from two California Counties, Humboldt and Mendocino. Supprisingly, only one of these cards in not Mendocino County and that one was sent into Humboldt County from San Francisco, it is the earlest card of my war rate cards. Complete with Win the War slogan cancel, it is a Christmas card sent to Arcata, Cal Dec 23 1917, second month of the rate.







The next card is from Mendocino to Albion ( about 6 miles ) on the last day of February 1918. It is also part of a large postcard correspondence of an extended logging family, as was the first card. This is a photo of a natural sea arch just west of Mendocino City.










Almost a month later I have an Easter Card sent locally in Caspar Mar 23 1918.









This next card was sent north to Portland Ore from Fort Bragg, in thanks for an Easter Card, one of California Western Railroad and Navigation Company's cards. Apr 14 1918. Unfortunatlly, I cut the title off in my scan.








The next card is also from mailed from Fort Bragg, but datelined Fortuna, in Humboldt County, and shows Carson's Woods in Fortuna.







The folks at the post office in Willits must have not been feeling well by the time Christmas rolled around as they forgot that there was a war on. So did the folks at the Caspar post office were this card was recieved, no one caught the under paid postage!








This next card was sent from Gualala ( pronounced Wal ala ) on the south west edge of Mendocino County to the Southeast end, way up in the mountains, just inside of the Mendocino county border to Ornbaum Dec 19 1918.









This last card was sent to the same person as the second card was, another card of that large post card correspondence I mentioned. This card should be postmarked Salsig, as it is from Camp 11 which
was near were Salgig was, but Salsig and Manzanita were no longer there. Salgig became Manzanita on Sep 9 1912, Manzanita closed on Jun 15, 1915. Instead it is postmarked Elk, Cal. That is a 32 foot saw.

littleriverphil, Greetings:

It might be of use to remember that 1917 was when the US entered the war.

The most-oft-cited-and-might-even-be-usefully-accurate estimate is that 75% of the "Golden Era" postcards sold in the USA had been coming from Europe, principally from Germany.

While the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act of 1909 had raised the tariffs on German postcards, their market share might not have changed all that much by, say, 1914. At that point, patriotic sentiment is oft-said to have devastated sales of cards marked "Made In Germany" (and Bavaria and Dresden and ... you get the idea).

So we have:

1) The war-time doubling of the price of the Penny Postcard - "War On Xmas!", the headlines might have blared - and,

2) The disappearance of all of the really good postcards (and new really good postcards) from store shelves.

This might have led folks to mark the holidays (and birthdays) some other way or - in for a penny, in for a pound - to upgrade to greeting cards.

From an earlier post of mine, quoting the Metropolitan Postcard Club publishers database:

"After some success in selling packets of postcards in 1910 Joyce Clyde Hall set up his own distribution business the following year. By 1912 his brother Rollie joined him and they began printing greeting cards as they saw the postcard market failing. All their inventory was lost to a fire in 1915 but they recovered and continued publishing. In 1917 they invented gift wrapping and they became the first company to advertise cards on a national basis. These innovations helped them capture half of the greeting card market. They changed the Company name to Hallmark in 1928."

So, my SWAG (US Navy acronym) is that these years are less-represented in your collection for the simple reason that there a whole lot less postcards (especially collectible postcards) bought and sent during this time.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey