Many of the things around us have become so firmly embedded in our lives that when we use them, we don't even realize that they have their own history.

A postcard has its history as well. For almost three centuries, it has been delighting us with news and heartfelt congratulations from friends and relatives, regardless of distance and weather conditions.

In 1777, the Paris postal service offered its customers to send greetings, congratulations, and messages on special engraved cards. The cards were not packaged, but sent as an open letter. Their content was not hidden from others. The author of this invention is considered to be the engraver Déméson. In the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, postal items of this kind were also called “artistic cards” because of the pictures decorating them.

Postcards became widespread in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries in England. They were cards, which, as a rule, were handmade by painters. Various and sometimes unexpected materials were used to decorate cards: dried flowers, leather, rubber, velvet, silk, beads. The cards were dedicated to Easter, Christmas and St Patrick's Day.

In November 1865, at a German postal conference, the Prussian postal councillor Heinrich von Stephan proposed issuing an open ‘postal leaflet’ where one side was reserved for the address and the other for the text. But this proposal was rejected. Two years later, two more similar projects emerged. One was from the Leipzig bookseller Friedlein, who asked the Post Office for permission to issue a ‘universal correspondence card’; the second one was from the firm Pardubitz, who recommended that postal officials issue a ‘universal correspondence card’ with an address on one side and thirty phrases on the other, including various greetings, condolences, words of condolence and brief notices. From all of this, a person could choose the desired text and cross out the rest. The reason for this interest in postcards in Germany was quite practical. These cards, as printed matter, were not paid for at the expensive postal rate, but at the lower parcel rate, since they were not letters. But both such cleverly conceived projects were rejected since mail officials did not want to lose money.

In January 1869, Emmanuel Hermann, professor of economics at the Military Academy in Vienna, reported in a newspaper about a ‘correspondent card’ he had invented. The author of this variant proposed to limit the text of a letter to twenty words, including address and signature. The professor's proposal was accepted by the Austro-Hungarian government, excluding the suggestion to limit the text because a considerable number of postal clerks had to be kept to count the words. . Thus, on October 1, 1869, a ‘correspondence card’ was issued with a two Kreutzer printed stamp. This was the first postcard, which was a 123*88 mm sheet of heavy yellow paper with a lemon-yellow postage stamp in the right corner. There were no drawings on these postcards. The artistic postcard appeared a few months later. At first, fearing prying eyes, many individuals and especially firms avoided using postcards, but little by little the public became accustomed to them, and postcards became more and more widespread as they began their journey around the world.

In July 1870, bookseller Schwarz from Oldenburg issued a postcard with a small drawing depicting an artilleryman with cannon.

Postcards quickly spread in other countries. In 1871, they began to be published by postal authorities of England, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, in 1872 – Sweden, Norway, Ceylon, in 1873 – France, Spain, Romania, Serbia, Chile, in 1874 – Italy. In Russia the postcard was published in 1872.

The first to be industrially produced greeting card was a Christmas card designed by John Horsley for Henry Cole in Great Britain in 1840. On the 12*7 cm card, the painter depicted the Cole family sitting at a festive table, the image was accompanied by the subscription: ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!’, and he put a note ‘from whom’ at the bottom, so that the person who sent the card by post could write his name. The postcard was a huge success. The Cole family proudly displayed it to those around them. However, the Puritans sharply stigmatised Horsley's print for the fact that the artist had put a glass of red wine in the hands of all his characters, including children. Despite this fact, interest in the Cole postcard never waned. Even after three years, it was still on public display. This gave the Coles the idea that such postcards, if sold to everyone, could generate a good income.

About a thousand copies were printed from the original, and the Coles received a shilling for each card – that was quite a lot of money! Nevertheless, the family was convinced that the interest of the public in Christmas cards was nothing more than transitory fashion rather than business It later turned out how wrong they were. From the 1860s onwards, postcards were produced en masse.

Open letters were introduced in Russia on January 1, 1872. They were not illustrated. An address was written and a stamp was pasted on one side of the postcard, and there was a rule: ‘Nothing else was allowed to be written on this side except the addresses. The second side was intended for a written message and had the inscription: ‘The Post Office is not responsible for the content of the letter’. Russian postcards were of different colours. The earliest were greyish-white, and then in May 1872, three types of post cards appeared: black (universal), which could be sent both within the city and to other cities, depending on the price of the pasted stamp; brown – for sending within the city and green – to other cities.

The next important milestone in the history of a postcard development in Russia was 1894, when I.N. Durnovo (1834-1903), Russian statesman, the Russian Empire Minister for Internal Affairs (from 1889 to 1895) allowed to issue privately produced forms of open letters – before that the monopoly right to issue open letters belonged to the Post Office Department.

The first illustrated postcards in Russia were photographic view postcards depicting the sights of Moscow. A series of five such postcards is known, with an inscription that allows their dating: ‘Permitted by censorship. Moscow. November 18, 1895.’

There are several museums of postcards in Russia. There are thematic collections of postcards in almost all regional local history museums of the Russian Federation. Curious exhibitions are held every year.

Presently, the thematic exhibition ‘Handwriting of Time. Cabinet accessories and postcards’, which, among other things, feature postcards with the views of old Moscow, stored in the museum Collection.
Postcards with views of old Moscow, which are exhibited at this exhibition, can be examined in detail in the thematic album in the museum Photo Gallery.