Vintage Thingies Thursday: Souvenir Postcard Booklet of Salem, Massachusetts

For today's Vintage Thingies Thursday I'd like to share a vintage souvenir postcard booklet of Salem Massachusetts produced by Curt Teich & Company in the early 20th century:

The House of Seven Gables

Ropes Memorial and Botanical Garden

Scary Salem witch and her house

Inside, there are eighteen total pictures like those of the "Salem witch" above of major historical landmarks and architecture in Salem. The booklet folds into a postcard-sized decorated envelope made of heavy paper that can be sent through the mail. Curt Teich & Co. perfected the "photochrome" or "chrome" technique using images that were based on colored photographs and then printed on coated paper. This booklet definitely dates after 1929 and more than likely before the mid-1940s, but my research on the series number in the lower right hand corner of the outer paper folder, D-626, indicates that it was probably printed in 1930.  If I'm right, that would make this booklet exactly 80 years old! 

Curt Teich & Co. became the undisputed master of the "large letter postcard" that was so popular in the 1930s and throughout the 1950s:

These are highly collectible, by the way, and I really wish this one were mine. There is a definitive book on the subject that was just published last year, Large Letter Postcards: The Definitive Guide, 1930s-1950s, if you'd like to read more about them.

This is my only postcard booklet, and as part of my collections "purge" I've decided to give this one up. If you'd like to have the Salem booklet for your personal collection, altered art, scrapbooking, or other purpose it's in the Etsy shop.

Don't forget to visit Coloradolady's blog for more vintage things today!