Snail Mail

1%, at least, of Italy's GDP comes from the postcard.

There are more postcard stands here than trashcans, I kid you not. So, in keeping promises to all my fellow Americans, I sought out a particularly unassuming stand -- everyone likes an underdog -- and purchased 10 black & white cards that were historically-themed and not those flashy "I heart florence" neon tragedies. 

Now if you play your "cards" right (pun intended), then you can bargain maybe 10 for 6 Euro, which is still like $8. And then there's the stamp. One of my friends had given me false hope the week before, saying she bought a stamp for only 0.70 Euro cent. 

Au contraire. Turns out that's the cost to send one to Europe. To send one across the big pond:

 10 stamps = 16 Euro = almost $20

This spiraled me into an anti-establishment rant about the ridiculousness of money-pit traditions like gift wrapping, prom, and now postcard sending. I sought out some form of consolation in Google-ing (yes, it is a verb now) the origin of the little post-friendly sized paper cards. 

So here's what I found:

If you're a postcard collector, you're into deltiology. But don't think you're all that original, because it is considered the third largest hobby in the world next in line to stamp and coin collecting. Their introduction into society was a gradual process. The first officially-named "postcard" was allowed by the US Government in 1901. 

Originally postcards were hand painted, but these didn't last long since it led to the sickness of many women. "How so?" You might ask. According to all-knowing postcard historians, mostly women artists would sit in an assembly line to illustrate the cards. Each woman would be responsible for a particular color of the illustration. The cards were small, and the artwork was detailed. Women would wet the tip of their brushes with their lips when they worked. And soon the lead in the paint led to several women becoming sick and dying. 

There were many other trends in the postcard history. But after reading the rest of the article, I was able to properly identify the era, type and style of mine. 

I'm now the proud momma of 10 cards modeled after the Early Modern Period aka the White Border Period from 1915-1930, with the traditional divided back and real photo front. 

Moral of the story: use every seemingly poor purchase as a way to educate yourself, and you may end up realizing it wasn't a bad purchase after all. And if you still find it to be a bad purchase, now you're educated about a random topic of which you had no prior knowledge. And that's how people win "Jeopardy." So there.