What Makes A Vintage Postcard Desirable To Collectors

To run further off on this interesting tangent ...
Salsig: An interesting cancel chronology. The use of a manuscript postmark after a handstamp device often indicates a fire or flood or tornado destroying a PO. Emergencies create interesting postal history! Although I do not find anything about a disaster on-line, I would not be surprised if there was a PO destruction at Salsig in May or June of 1912, a new Salsig device was ordered which arrived at about the same time as the name change (which oddly does not seem to appear in the Postal Bulletins), then there was a delay in getting the new Manzanita cancel, which delay in supplying the new device is consistent with several name changes I know of in Indiana. Just a guess, but the use of the manuscript cancel raises is a good mystery to research.

Q/ Was Salsig large enough for a post office?

For smaller towns, where the 'post office' was a contract with the general store, all you would need would be a store closing (owner dies?), theft, or very small fire for the canceler to be out-of-service for a short time.

That scale of event might be lost to history.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

No, it was in the store. and along side the railroad. As close as the store is to the tracks, any thing could have happened. From a log breaking loose to sparks setting fire to the store. On another Salsig card the writer mentions days above 100 degrees.

History! That's what makes postcards valuable to this collector. Valuable in the sense that I appreciate their importance and often scarcity. As an investment, forget it. Get into art, that's the best vehicle (if you know what you're doing).

This is one of my favorites. A picture postcard sent from a National Guard soldier on the border with Mexico during the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1916. Columbus, NM was the site of Villa's raid a few months before.