Friday, July 30, 2010

"How Can You Do It" postcard, 1910

Beth at The Best Hearts Are Crunchy hosts this weekly gathering of postcard collectors. If you'd like to join, simply go to her blog and enter  by clicking on the linky gadget and following the instructions. Then simply click on the other links to see many other vintage and unusual postcards.




Ah yes, the age old question: "How can you do it on $14.25 per?" The sender scribbled "year" but then tried to erase and wrote "month" below the question mark. I guess making $14.25 a week would have been unheard of! But I'd have to research salaries in 1910 to say that with any certainty. But even back then people wondered if others lived beyond their means...hey, what are you doing with a box seat at the opera, anyway?

So this card was mailed to Mr. Doctor Johnson in Scranton with the cryptic message:

On [or "Oh" ?] Doc I have something in my eye can you take it out. How is the old maid across the counter from Pony. Klein 104 Mulberry St.


Something tells me these two were enjoying an inside joke. Maybe "the old maid" joked about "something in my eye" to bring a young fellow closer...

10 comments:

  1. I like this card and what it says about prices/wages. I'm reading a cozy mystery set right after the stock market crash in '28. The characters are talking about lowering the monthly membership fee in the garden club from 25 cents to 15 cents. Love the colors in these old cards.

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  2. The two spectators seem all boxed in. They should think outside the box, for a...counter action.

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  3. What an interesting old card...would love to know the story behind this one!

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  4. Love the messages almost more than the cards! Good one.

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  5. Message does seem kind of puzzling.

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  6. What an interesting and cryptic message!

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  7. I love these strange messages.

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  9. Like you, I think there was an insider joke going on. Fun! But it's interesting too, to think of the incomes in those days.

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  10. I worked one summer in a dime store for $12.00 a week. A little over $2.00 of that had to be used for a punch ticket to ride the bus from our small town to Peoria. That would have been in 1945. It's all relative, though, since prices were much, much cheaper. Carol

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