Lot 235

Early 20th Century Art Nouveau Postcard Album with Collection of Embossed Holiday, Valentine & California View Cards

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Lot 235
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Early 20th Century Art Nouveau Postcard Album with Collection of Embossed Holiday, Valentine & California View Cards
Early 20th Century Art Nouveau Postcard Album with Collection of Embossed Holiday, Valentine & California View Cards
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Early 20th Century Art Nouveau Postcard Album with Collection of Embossed Holiday, Valentine & California View Cards

Current Bid: $10

(2 Bids)
by California Auction Company LLC
August 1, 2026 9:00 AM PDT
Live Auction
1212 E. Harding Way
Stockton, CA, US 95205

An attractive early 20th-century Art Nouveau postcard album retaining a charming assortment of period postcards housed in its original decorative cloth-covered binding. The album features an embossed floral cover with an inset chromolithographed pastoral scene and "Post Cards" title, representative of the elegant presentation albums produced during America's Golden Age of Postcards. The collection includes a varied selection of holiday greetings, Valentines, Easter, Christmas, New Year's, Thanksgiving, birthday, floral, sentimental, and novelty postcards. Many examples exhibit richly colored chromolithography, embossed decoration, and gilt highlights, with delightful imagery including cherubs, rabbits, chicks, Santa Claus, floral bouquets, children, and romantic motifs. Also included are several scenic and real photo-style views, including California subjects such as Golden Gate, San Francisco, Hanford, Turlock, and additional landscape views. Albums such as this served as treasured keepsakes during the postcard collecting craze of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Beyond preserving the cards themselves, the original album provides valuable context for how these collections were assembled and enjoyed by their original owner. The varied subject matter and period artwork make this an appealing offering for collectors of antique ephemera, holiday postcards, California history, and Americana. The album retains approximately 28 postcards visible in the photographed pages, with numerous embossed and decorative examples that display exceptionally well. An attractive decorative display piece and a desirable archive of early American and European postcard art.

  • Literature: The "Golden Age of Postcards" is generally recognized as spanning approximately 1900 through World War I, when illustrated postcards became one of the most popular means of personal communication. Decorative postcard albums were produced in a wide variety of Art Nouveau and Arts & Crafts-inspired bindings, serving both as practical storage and as attractive parlor display pieces. Holiday-themed embossed postcards remain among the most collectible categories within antique paper ephemera.
  • Circa: Circa 1905–1920.
  • Condition: Album exhibits expected age-related wear including edge and corner wear, scuffing, staining, discoloration, spine wear with partial separation, and areas of loss to the cloth and boards. Interior pages remain generally intact with postcards secured in corner mounts. Postcards exhibit varying degrees of handling wear, light corner wear, and age toning consistent with period use. Sold as found.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $49 $5
$50 $199 $10
$200 $499 $25
$500 + $50