I glanced up from desk and the first thing I saw was a leather postcard that somebody sent to my great-grandmother back when she was “Miss.” The postmark and date are worn away, but the art is copyright 1906. It’s such a weird little artifact… someone clearly just cut out a mini-postcard from a hunk of leather by hand, and then printed an owl and a moon on it, and then “GET WISE Come to” and then someone scratched in pen where they were supposed to come to, but that’s worn away. And on the back is space for filling in a name and address (which it kind of looks like was done with a burning tool, that part still readable, a little unsteady but mostly in this big-style ornate cursive like the Constitution), and not space for anything else. There’s no message. Just “Come To (scratches).”

I have no idea why they made a leather postcard, but if they were looking to make a little novelty item that people would consider as special they succeeded, because for whatever reason I still have it well over a hundred years later.