[Hugh]

The letter-card is one of my favourite collectibles. Postcards were the social media of the late 19th and early 20th century. In the big cities with multiple daily postal deliveries, postcards could be used like phone calls and text messages. The disadvantage was that others could read your message.

Cross-writing made it harder to read a messsage (and allowed more content in a small space) but the letter-card took it one step further ... the message was completely hidden. It was a postcard with the attributes of a letter.

I love it when I come across an example of a letter-card that also has cross-writing. It's like the sender was taking no chances ... and doubling down on the length of the message.

   

This one was sent on December 2, 1906 from Ventnor on the Isle of Wight, a fashionable health and holiday resort to Julius Heywinkel in Borås in Sweden. Borås was a town well known for its textile industry. Julius Heywinkel was born in Bielefeld, Germany and after his apprenticeship as a weaver, went to Sweden to work in the textile industry. Seven years after this card was sent he formed his own company, in 1913, in Osnabruck to mill sail cloth. The firm still exists and today is known as Heytex Bramsche GmbH.

When this letter post was sent to him in Sweden he wasn't there. It was forwarded on December 5 to Osnabruck where it arrived on December 7. It would appear that Julius was already exploring the opportunities in his home country.

A nice set of cancels from Ventnor, Boråk and Osnabruck. There are two cancels from Boråk. I assume one was the original arrival cancel and the other was applied when it was forwarded to Germany.

   

   

Cheers, Hugh