Bizarre Postcards

Web Stuff

MOST OF THE PAGES ON THIS SITE ARE FAMILY FRIENDLY - SOME OF THIS SECTION IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT!

Although some of the images in this section are amusing there are images of dead people or animals. Some of the images are merely slightly disturbing others are just gross. You have been warned!

Since I started collecting postcards, I've come to realize that there is no subject that was considered out of bounds for putting on a postcard at one time or another. This is a collection of cards that I find groteqsque, bizarre, humourous, macabre, gross, surreal, weird, wacky, tacky or just unusual.

This collection contains 86 postcards.

Title Page Description
Pictorial Index 2 Thumbnails of all the postcards illustrated on the site
1913 Flood 3 Images of drowned animals
Accidental Deaths 4 Pikes Peak: Mr. and Mrs. Skinner
Animal Oddities   Six legged cow
Auschwitz Birkenau 5 The infamous Nazi concentration camp
Babies & Infants 6 Goat Suckling Baby
Banksy (1) 7 Bristol's famous street artist
Banksy (2) 8  
Benares, India 9  
Catacombs 10  
Cremation 11 Hindu Cremation
Criminals   Dalton Gang
Death Beds   Martha Washington
Ethnic   Neck Rings, Shrunken Heads
Exaggeration    
Famine    
Film Noir    
Fire 12 Burning Oil Tank, Hotel Roy
Gargoyles. Grotesques & Chimera 13 Notre Dame
Holiday Greetings 14 Hawaii
Holidays   Easter
Human Oddities 15 Leo Kongee & Singlee, Paul McWilliams & Alfred Langevin, Giantess, X-Ray of six fingered hand
Humourous 16 Chief Close-Mouth, Lucky Escape, This is as far as you can go, Einmagnetstein, Double Date Out West, Designated Driver, Prairie Dog Watchers, Short Horse
Hunting 17 Hunters, hunting and their prey
Natural Disasters 18 Approaching Dust Storm
Open Coffins   Uncle Luke, Unknown Baby
Roadside Attractions 19 Dead Man's Hand, Monkey Jungle, Prehistoric Forest, Redwood Shrine Tree
Suicide 20 Death of Mary Miller
Surreal   Elephants and Giant Telephone, Dead Game Sports
Torture   Success, Iron Maiden
War Casualties 21  
Wordplay 22  

Some of these postcards have images of subjects that most people will find very distasteful. There are several arguments as to why I've included them. The first is that this is a collection of bzarre and grotesque postcards - so what did you expect?

The second is that at the time most of these cards were produced they were a legitimate method of disseminating news and the events of the day. For example, there were thousands of postcards produced depicting the floods of 1913, some which included images of some of the thousands of horses and other animals that were drowned, and even some of the people that lost their lives.

Postcards are also historical documents in their own right. Not only do they show actual events but they also reflect the changes in society. Can you remember the raunchy humourous postcards that adorned every seaside resort but which are now considered non-PC?

Wars are fought for a variety of reasons and almost without exception all sides believe they are doing the "right" thing. Unfortunately, once the flag-waving and jingoism have been left behind a lot of people are going to die and some of the postcards in this section remind us all of that.

Having said all of the above, this collection includes some very interesting postcards and I hope you enjoy them for what they are and maybe make you think about the events they depict.