Mail from the past

‘Postcard Wally’ hosts local postcard show

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THURSDAY, Feb. 4 — In a time before the Internet, postcards were the tweets and Instagram posts of their day. For a few pennies, you could send a note to a friend across town or across the country with a fabulous photograph on the front. The phrase “Wish you were here,” scribbled on the back of a postcard, became a noted — occasionally ironic — cliché.

Today, these little light cardboard missives are hot collectibles and give us historical insight into everyday life, architecture and vacation sites of yesteryear.

This Saturday, Walter Jung — known to many as “Postcard Wally” — brings his Greater Lansing Postcard and Paper Show to the Okemos Conference Center, located between the Holiday Inn Express and the Comfort Inn and just off the I-96 Okemos exit. The event is free.

More than 500,000 postcards will be for sale by a dozen dealers from Ohio, Kansas City and Northern Michigan. Jung said that in addition to some highly sought-after postcards — such real photo postcards made from actual photographic prints — there will be many inexpensive cards available for less than a dollar.

Jung himself is bringing about 1,000 Lansing area and Michigan Agricultural College real photo cards and a wide collection of Lansing-area postcards. Jung said he can’t believe the reaction to some of his posts of postcards on Facebook.

“People fall in love with them,” he said. “The posts often get 1,000 likes.”


Greater Lansing Postcard and Paper Show

10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6

FREE

2187 University Park Drive, Okemos

postcardwally.com

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