South of France

During a visit to Antibes on the Cote d'Azur a week ago I went to Nice to see the antique and vintage market held there.  It was very hot and sunny - just the weather for browsing - and I was looking for some vintage letters and cards to use in my book art.  I found some post cards easily -

And some with scenes -

There is some wonderful old-fashioned writing on these, and the dates are around the 1950s.  They will also be good for collage, either stand alone or for use as collage in my book art.

It was a marvellous market and browsing was taking quite some time.  Eventually I thought it was going to be unlikely that I would find any letters, although we turned a corner and there was a basket full of old letters.  The postmarks on the envelopes show they date from 1940, 1950 and 1960, and they all hold amazing letters all beautifully handwritten, so I was very pleased to find them.  They all have that genuine patina of age. They were not that expensive and the owner of the stall was too busy drinking with his pal to worry about coming across to see what we wanted, so we went to him in the cafe where he was sitting outside in the sunshine, to settle up with him.

Anyway, here's what they look like -

And inside -

This gives me lots more material to work with and I'm looking forward to using these in many different ways.  For example, I also feel a card-marking session coming on.  I'll show some on here when I've made a few.