30 oversized postcards featuring vintage images of frogs from the Laughing Elephant picture book collection.

From the Laughing Elephant’s collection of antique children’s books, vintage postcards, advertising art and other of our vast and wonderful collection of desideratum we have created a postcard book devoted to and celebrating frogs and their ineffable frogginess.

Frogs!, is the 14th title in the Laughing Elephant’s popular line of postcard books. It contains 30 oversized postcards, all featuring frogs; fairytale frogs (prior to their being kissed and turned into princes,) walking frogs, talking frogs, dressed frogs, natural frogs, pretty frogs and warty frogs, toady frogs and froggy frogs, in short frogs of all sorts.

Why frogs, you may ask? It is a good question, yet one that is not easy to answer. Like many of our most enduring passions its origins are so deep any adequate explanation would be too lengthy for our present form. Put simply, mankind has always been drawn to frogs; from the ancient Egyptian frog goddess to the Roman frog kings, and in every culture all the way through history to Kermit the Frog, we have involved frogs in our mythology and entertainments. We appreciate the frog’s place in the evolutionary continuum, standing athwart the distinction between the primordial slime and dry land as they do. We also take note of their buggy eyes and super greenness, their remarkable jumping ability, and their long tongues and deep ribbits; frogs are very unique and so attract attention.

The editors of this volume, after looking at thousands of frog pictures, believe the answer its quite simple; frogs are funny looking, they make us laugh. Frogs are characters, somehow serious and comical at the same time (Mr. Toad comes to mind) they have personality. Finally, it is nearly impossible to draw a picture of a frog that is not funny to look at, we suggest you try.
As to our assertions about the value of frog appreciation we feel certain that the organizers of The Rayne Louisiana Frog Festival agree with us, as do the sponsors of the Toad Suck Daze in Conway Arkansas and the Frogfest in Cedarville Michigan. Any doubts you may have about the veracity of our statements can probably be alleviated by the venerable Calaveras County Fair and Frog Jumping Jubilee or the august Frog Museum in Berne Switzerland.

No frogs legs were eaten in the production of this book.

30 Reproductions of vintage postcards featuring America’s National Parks, bound
in an attractive book format and detachable for mailing. This collection will be
published to coincide with the debut of Ken Burns’ National Parks documentaries

The famous western writer Wallace Stegner once wrote that National Parks were “Americas best idea- inherently democratic, open to all. They reflect us at our best, not our worst”

In spirit with this idea and wishing to celebrate these national treasures the Laughing Elephant has gathered 30 striking and unique vintage postcards highlighting some of the best known and loved parks into a postcard book. Postcard books are a particularly pleasing book form as they can be taken apart and used for correspondence or kept whole as a miniature art book.

A dazzling myriad of postcard’s were produced to promote and remember a visit to one of these temples to natures beauty. We have selected a graphically striking group from among this abundance. Some of the parks included are:

Yellowstone, Death Valley, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Redwood Forest, Carlsbad Caverns, Great Smoky Mountains, Crater Lake, Grand Teton, Badlands, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Mount Rainer, Rocky Mountain, Glacier, Acadia, Hot Springs and many more.

Postcard books are one of our favorite projects, because they give us the opportunity to share material that doesn’t fit easily into a book or other project.

The list of illustrators represented includes Humphrey Bogart’s mother., Frank Lloyd Wright’s sister, students of Rodin and Howard Pyle, the creator of the Kewpies, suffragettes, freethinker and expatriates. We think their illustrations are as rich, varied and intriguing as their lives.

Clara Burd
Sarah Stilwell Weber
Maria Kirk
Rose O’Neill
Dorothy Lathrop
Jessie Willcox Smith
Fanny Cory
Maginel Wright Barney
Maude Humphrey
Elizabeth Mackinstry

This is our collection of 30 antique Easter Rabbit postcards. They are easily removed for mailing, or it makes a lovely easter basket gift!

The Easter Rabbit, along with Santa Claus, is one of the most beloved figures of holiday mythology. He embodies selfless generosity and a love of children. The Easter Rabbit was a great favorite of postcard artists of the early-20th century, the golden age of the picture postcard. Among the thousands of postcards of the Easter Rabbit we, of course, find many depicting egg decoration and egg delivery, but also more unusual images. Included here are rabbits at work and play, shopping for hats, and playing baseball. They are tall and short, brown and white, clothed and unclothed, some live in houses, some in burrows. Their means of transportation are varied and delightful, and their offspring are adorable.

A book of thirty vintage American postcards featuring illuminated nightscapes.

Night is a time when mystery reigns, and the beauty of contrast is most intense. For most of human history, night has been a time of largely unrelieved darkness, but with ever advancing methods of lighting the night world has bloomed.

Here we reproduce some of our favorite colored postcards, mostly from the late-19th and early-20th centuries, showing American cities, parks, fairs, shops, main streets, fountains, and waterfalls – each made more beautiful by night.

These postcards began as photographs which have been hand colored and printed. Famed graphic designer Barry Zaid says of this type of card, “Here was a synthesis of painting and photography resulting in a photographic look, with the clarity of color and detail that only an artist could create.” These images are also known as ‘hand-tinted’.

Some of the scenes included are: Niagara Falls, The Brooklyn Bridge in 1905, the original Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, Davenport’s Restaurant in Spokane, the Statue of Liberty, the Christmas Lights of Corpus Christi and Grauman’s Chinese Theater just to name a few.

Another exciting addition to our popular line of postcard books…

The making of snow people is a perennial activity which has not been eliminated by modernity. It is an exciting part of every winter, and pictures of snow people continue to fascinate us. The great age of postcard publishing (1890-1920) produced thousands of images of snowmen, snowwomen and snow-children. They were particularly popular for the winter hollidays, and frequently depicted festive greenery and other Christmas imagery.

We have selected thirty favorites from our collection. They show these snow-creatures making friends with humans, being made and decorated, interacting with animals, freezing, melting and even moving around, a sight we seldom get to see.

The last portion of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th are known in France as “La Belle Époque”, and it was indeed a beautiful era, producing wonderful literature, music, painting, design, architecture, and graphic art. Chéret was the father of the French Poster, both as artist and inventor of the lithographic process that enabled easier and cheaper full-color printing. He was quickly followed by such masters as Toulouse-Lautrec, Steinlen, Berthon, Mucha, Cappiello, Grun, Pol, Villon, Grasset, and nearly countless others. The poster craze of this era functioned, in Chéret’s words, as “an art gallery of the street” and set the bar high for advertising art for many years. Here in our little collection we offer posters by each of these great masters and many others from this wonderful period of creativity.

A selection of thirty vintage wine posters reproduced in our new more generous postcard book format.

Wine inspires passion in many people, and so it is not surprising that it has inspired many wonderful posters. The majority of those we include here are French, for it is there that wine culture has reached its pinnacle. We also have attractive examples from Germany, Spain and Italy.

The examples we reproduce will delight poster enthusiasts but will also, with their variety and evocative power, please many who make wine an important part of their lives.

As much as adults enjoy Christmas, children enjoy it even more. The young are not nearly as burdened with the financial and social obligations of the holiday, and are more open to the magic and wonder of the season. Thus children and Christmas are natural partners, and this fact is reflected in the prevalence of children in Christmas art. This is especially so in the area of the picture postcard, which enjoyed amazing popularity from approximately 1880 to 1910, the era from which these postcards come.

For this postcard book we have selected thirty images of adorable children engaged in a variety of Yuletide activities. Presents are given and received, trees trimmed, letters to Santa sent, carols sung and sleigh-bells rung in this delightful assortment.

For obvious reasons, we have a special place for elephants, not only in our hearts but in our collections as well. Many brilliant illustrators have expressed their affection and awe for this wonderful animal through the decades. Illustrators include: Johnny Gruelle, F.Y. Cory, Charles Robinson, Maude and Mishka Petersham and Tony Sarg.