 at 221 Baker Street.
But can an enthusiast put together a collection of Sherlock Holmes
postcards? The answer is yes, certainly, but it requires the kind of
doggedness that solved Holmes’s most difficult cases.
The first Holmes story came out in 1887, “A Study in Scarlet,”
published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual. THE CASE-BOOK OF SHERLOCK HOLMES came out in 1927, marking the end of the fictional detective’s career (Doyle died in 1930). This places the majority of cases in the late Victorian period, a time when the world was awash with postcards,
the so-called “Golden Age” of the hobby.
So did Sherlock Holmes rock the postcard world the way he did the book
world? Afraid not. The most desirable are reproductions of scenes
drawn by Sidney Paget for The Strand Magazine. This artist produced
357 Holmes drawings, but only a few appear on older postcards and
these aren’t plentiful.
The easiest starting place for a Holmes collection is the internet. Modern postcards are fairly plentiful and include a Granada series featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes in the TV productions. Another nice series was issued by the Royal Mail in 1993 picturing their five stamps honoring the detective.
Tracing the actors who played Holmes can lead to postcards. The oldest card in my collection shows the Baldwin Theatre in Springfield, Mo.
With a huge billboard announcing “Sherlock Holmes” by William
Gillette, the actor most associated with the detective in this
country. It was mailed in 1905.
For collectors who are up for a real challenge and enjoy reading his
cases, there’s another way to put together a Holmes collection. Doyle
used real places in his stories, and in the early 1900’s postcard
production was so great that it literally covered the world. Imagine
how much it would add to the adventures of Holmes and Watson if the
reader had an album of postcards showing all the places they went.
For those who already have a collection of London postcards, focusing
on Sherlock Holmes can make it much more meaningful. Names like Pall
Mall, Regent Cir