Although there were earlier scattered issues, most pioneer cards in collection begin with the cards placed on sale at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago on May 1, 1893. These were illustrations on Government postal cards and privately printed souvenir cards. The privately printed cards required a 2 cent adhesive postage stamp while the Government printed postal cards were 1 cent. Writing was not permitted on the address side of the card.
On May 9, 1898, private printers were granted permission, by an act of Congress, to print and sell cards that bore the inscription "Private Mailing Card", today we call these cards PMC's. Postage required was now 1 cent. A dozen or more printers began to take postcard publishing seriously. Writing was not permitted on the address side of these cards either.
The use of the word "Post Card" was allowed by the government on December 24, 1901, to the private printers of postcards. Writing was still not permitted on the address side. Many millions of postcards appeared on the market. The major portion of photographic pictures were sent to Germany to be produced as postcards and to be hand colored. Black and White photographs, taken by private citizens and company, were developed on paper with postcard backs.
Postcards with a divided back were permitted on March 1, 1907. The address to be written on the right and a message could be written on the left. Probably over a billion cards were published in this era. Due to high tariffs and the advent of World War One, imports from Germany ceased. By early 1915 our supplies of postcards were from England and the United States. This ended the era of the beautiful lithograph colored cards from Germany.
During this period most of our postcards were made in the United States. High labor costs, the changing public tastes, and other matters, caused the production of poor quality cards. To save ink costs a white border was left around the edge of the cards. This is why these cards are referred to as "White-Border" cards. High Competition in a narrowing market caused many postcard printing firms to close their doors forever. Regardless of the poor quality of these cards many important world events are recorded on them.
New printing processes allowed printers to issue postcards with a high rag content that would accept cheap gaudy dyes in place of inks. A few publishers, like, Curt Teich, Inc. flourished on their line of linen postcards. Many important events are recorded on these cards also.
Although there were a few earlier examples, the "Chrome" postcards started to dominate the scene soon after they were launched by the "Union Oil Company" through their western service stations in 1939. Mike Roberts pioneered with his "WESCO" cards soon after World War Two. Linen cards all but disappeared from postcard racks between 1945 and 1950. The 3-D cards (Three dimensional) postcards appeared in this era also.
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