“We can view our past by reading about it, but it comes alive more vividly if we see it in pictures.”

That’s how Bill Burton and Gary and Peggy Spengler understand the value of picture postcards. They are producing the DelMarVa Postcard Club’s fourth annual postcard show and sale on September 9 to give collectors an opportunity to select from hundreds of thousands of these cards available at the show.

Picture postcards come in two forms. There are cards that show buildings and scenes many of us recognize and also cards that show how our communities were a hundred years ago.

It’s not only views, though. Our lives then are depicted on cards about how we dressed, laughed, celebrated holidays, loved our pets, hated our enemies, our bathing costumes, food – every aspect of the lives and things that existed in the past can be found on picture postcards.

On Saturday, September 9 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., residents of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey can browse through hundreds of thousands of postcards offered by more than a dozen postcard dealers at the club’s annual show.

The show will be hosted at Cheswold Volunteer Fire Company, located at 371 Main Street, Cheswold, Delaware 19936.

Admission to this year’s show is only $3. A free door prize drawing will be held on the hour. Whether you are interested in cats in costumes, Santa Claus in green or brown, men and women at the beach in ‘bathing costumes’ there is no aspect of society unnoticed by what appeared on postcards of the time.

Like and follow the DelMarVa Postcard Club on Facebook or call 302-734-9259 for more information.