Welcome to Week CXXXIX of ‘Fishing Parkland Shorelines’. Like most of us I am a novice fisherman, loving to fish, but far from an expert. In the following weeks I’ll attempt to give those anglers who love to fish but just don’t have access to a boat, a look at some of the options in the Yorkton area where you can fish from shore, and hopefully catch some fish.
So after last week’s excursion into my small autograph collection, I thought I might as well continue with a shorter look at the development of my postcard gathering.
I have been asked on a few occasions what I see in a postcard that makes me want to buy it, put it in a book, and then look at it on a few occasions over the course of a year.
It is a question not initially easy to answer. People who collect things understand it simply as a ‘feeling’ I suppose, whereas on-collectors will never ‘get it’ because it is foreign to their thinking.
So let’s take a bit deeper look into it.
To start the postcard is something which is basically part of our past now.
I can recall as a youngster going to the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto, and grabbing postcards all over TO as a way to mark the trip.
You couldn’t stop at a hotel anywhere, or a gas station even in the smallest village, and not find a rack of postcards, usually with the name of the establishment, or the community, proudly displayed over the image.
Sure it was not likely the image was that of the small town, but it was something people could buy, scratch a few words on the back of, and send to Uncle Herb, or Grandma Millie just to stay in touch.
That role of the postcard has been taken over by Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and a half dozen other Internet serves, which have made the postcard obsolete.
So there is a bit of our history in every postcard collected.
I also think the attraction is very much a personal thing. Even as a collector, only certain postcards grab my attention. I might go through 250 sales on ebay on a given evening, and I won’t find one that holds my interest, let alone being one I’d want to bid on.
In the case of postcards there are actually thousands on any given theme, be it fishing, or dogs, or cars, so a collector will never acquire every one, and would go broke trying. So you quickly figure out a way to tighten the focus just a bit.
In my case it’s personal taste, but also within a few other parametres I have sort of self-imposed on the postcard collection.
To start I like to find sport fishing-related postcards from different countries.
As you might expect it’s pretty easy to find cards from Canada, although those showing Saskatchewan water are far rarer. So I’ll put out a quick request, if anyone has old postcards showing fishing in Saskatchewan, or Manitoba I would be interested if you wanted to part with them, and they will go to a good home in a safe sheet and book.
Cards from the United States are also plentiful.
But go farther afield and they become less common, so if I find a nice one from Chile, or Spain, I take a closer look for sure.
I am also always looking for cards which offer something a little bit different from the majority.
As an example there are a tonne of postcards showing someone fly fishing for trout. The idyllic scene of someone wading a river, rod bent to a trout’s fight, is oft repeated. I’m not sure if that speaks to the popularity of trout fishing, or perhaps simply the draw of such scenes for those purchasing postcards.
Finding someone hooking into a big pike is a lot rarer. I can tell you that my collection book holds two cards to a sheet, so a set of four fits on facing pages nicely.
I have been trying to put together four cards featuring pike from American waters for months, and I am still one short.
I’d love carp fishing postcards, but other than a few showing ‘arty’ Japanese carp, real fishing for the feisty fish are hard to find.
The same thinking had me chasing down a set of four postcards featuring ice fishing. I finally snagged four, but it took months and months trolling ebay.
Another set I managed to catch feature bass fishing, and another four cards reflect a ’1950s’ look at fishing.
I am at work on looking for postcards showing women fishing, a side of the sport not making it onto postcards nearly as often as men.
As you can see in my collection I often try to gather four to fill facing pages, because they look good in my book.
The next thing which attracts me quickly are old cards, the older the better. There is just a bit of history in old cards. In some cases they are more than a century old. That doesn’t mean they are ultra rare and valuable, but if you manage to catch a postcard from pre-1910, it means there is likely no one in our country born at the time the card was first printed.
In the best cases the old card might have been mailed, meaning you get an old stamp too, and often a note to the original recipient. It’s that little connection to the past which is just exciting to me.
I often look at a postcard and realize the person it was addressed to is gone from this world, likely decades ago, and am left wondering who they were, and what their lives had been like. I wonder if they were sent the card I now have because the sender knew they were avid fishermen, and would appreciate the image? Do I have that connection with the person, a love of fishing?
It’s not a question I can answer, but that is what imagination is for I suppose.
So while postcards are not the hobby for everyone, I enjoy the search, the relaxation of thumbing through its pages, and of course its connection to fishing.
