How to recognize a linen card
Run a fingertip across the front. A linen card has a fine, regular texture, like woven fabric, pressed into the surface. Look closely and you will see the texture under the ink. The colors are bold and flat, often more vivid than life: impossibly blue skies, glowing neon, perfectly green lawns. Most linens have a white border around the picture, and many carry a printed caption on the front and a descriptive paragraph on the back.
The back usually names the publisher. Some of the best known were Curt Teich & Co. of Chicago, by far the largest, along with Tichnor Brothers of Boston, E. C. Kropp of Milwaukee and Colourpicture of Boston. Many linen backs carry a code or series number that specialists use to date the card more precisely.
Why linens look the way they do
The textured stock allowed faster drying and brighter inks, and publishers retouched the source photographs heavily before printing: adding color, removing clutter, brightening signs, sometimes adding cars or people. The result was cheerful, idealized images that sold well during the Depression and the war years, when traveling by car and sending a card home from the road became part of American life.
Which linen postcards are worth more
Roadside businesses. Diners, cafes, motor courts, tourist cabins, motels, gas stations and roadside attractions are the most popular linen subjects. Route 66 and other famous highways have devoted followings. A card of a specific small-town diner or motel can sell for several dollars to much more, especially if the business is long gone.
Large-letter cards. The "Greetings from" cards with each letter of a place name filled with local scenes. Big states and cities are common; small towns and unusual places are scarcer and more wanted.
Advertising. Cards issued by a business to promote itself, often with its own name and address printed on the back.
Transportation. Airports, early airliners, streamlined trains, bus stations and car dealerships.
Comic and novelty linens. Some humor cards from the period are collected, though many are common. Wartime comic cards are popular with military collectors.
Which linens are common
Views of national parks, famous landmarks, big-city skylines, state capitols, beaches and scenic drives were printed in huge numbers and survive in quantity. Individually they sell for very little, though they still count in bulk as part of a collection.
Linen versus chrome
Linen cards were gradually replaced by chrome cards: glossy, photographic-looking postcards that first appeared around 1939 and dominated from the 1950s on. If a card is smooth and shiny with photographic color, it is a chrome. If it is textured with painterly color, it is a linen. See chrome postcards.
Linens in a collection
Linens are common in collections assembled from the 1930s through the 1950s, often mixed with earlier family cards and later chromes. They rarely carry most of a collection's value, but a strong run of roadside and small-town linens can add meaningfully to it. I count every linen in a quote; the roadside and advertising cards get a closer look.
Caring for linen cards
The raised texture can flatten if cards are pressed under heavy weight, and the bright inks fade in sunlight. Store linens upright in a box or in an album away from windows, and never stack heavy books on them.
The linen era and the open road
Linen postcards are a record of the moment Americans took to the highway. Through the 1930s and 1940s, paved roads spread across the country, families bought cars, and a new roadside economy grew up to serve them: filling stations, tourist courts, cabins, diners, souvenir stands and attractions designed to make drivers pull over. Many of those businesses ordered postcards of themselves to give away or sell at the counter, and travelers mailed them home as proof of the trip.
Most of those businesses are gone now. The motor court has become a parking lot, the diner a chain restaurant, the gas station an empty corner. For collectors of roadside history, a linen card may be the only color image of a particular place, which is why specific, identified roadside cards are the linens most worth a closer look.
How publishers produced linens
Linen cards were usually made from black and white photographs that artists colorized and retouched by hand before printing. Publishers kept their source photographs and production records, and some of those archives survive, which is how collectors can sometimes date a linen precisely from its code. It also explains why linen images can look slightly unreal: signs were sharpened, skies brightened, clutter removed and sometimes cars or people painted in. The image is a cheerful idea of the place as much as a record of it.
Linens worth pointing out
When you describe a collection, it is worth mentioning any linens that show:
- a named diner, cafe, drive-in or restaurant;
- a motel, tourist court or set of cabins with a sign;
- a gas station, garage or car dealer;
- an airport, early airliner or bus station;
- a large-letter card of a small town rather than a big state.
Those are the linens most likely to add to a quote.
Questions people ask
When were linen postcards made?
From about 1930 into the early 1950s, with the peak in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Are linen postcards valuable?
Most are worth a little. Roadside, diner, motel, gas station, advertising and small-town large-letter cards are worth more.
How can I date a linen postcard?
Publisher codes on the back are the most precise clue; specialist references explain Curt Teich's coding in detail. Postmarks and the cars and clothing in the picture help too.
Are unused linens worth more than used ones?
Usually not by much. Subject matters far more.
What size are linen postcards?
Standard postcard size, roughly 3.5 by 5.5 inches, the same as most earlier cards.
Sources and further reading
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