Postcards from the Fair 2011
by Jackie Flaherty (August 2011)
Almost every year we attend the Great Minnesota Get Together, otherwise known as the Minnesota State Fair. The fair goes for 12 days and signals the end of summer as it always ends on Labor Day. It took me awhile to catch on to the fact that they had postcards dedicated to the State Fair, but once I did I’ve been buying them ever since.
Since 1859 the Minnesota State Fair has been an annual event, except during the Civil War (1861), the Dakota War (1862), the World Expo in Chicago (1893) and an outbreak of polio in 1946. (Wikipedia)
The MN State Fair is the largest state fair in the US based on daily attendance (Wikipedia).
In 2009 attendance at the Great Minnesota Get Together was just under 1.8 million people, approximately 34% of the state’s population. (Wikipedia)
Steve Thomas (Artist)
The lovely orange colored card above is the original artwork chosen for 2011 State Fair. This is the most recent (eighth) artwork requisitioned for the fair.
Leo Stans (Artist)
The postcard above is the sixth in a series of eight for artwork depicting the fair at MN. This card is from 2009.
Michael Birawer (Artist)
My favorite State Fair card is the one pictured above that was the fourth in a series of eight (2007) cards/posters.
One of my favorite things to do at the fair? Why see the state’s largest boar, of course! The photo below is from our visit in 2009. That guy was just four years old and weighed 1,310 lbs!
I suppose I could turn that into a postcard. I posted some other state fair pictures of State Fair pictures on flickr.
Postcrossing: The Postcard Lovers’ Site
Welcome to the World of Postcard Collecting! Your best bet to get a postcard from a foreign country (outside of the US) is to join www.postcrossing.com. It’s FREE, but the catch is that you will have to send a card(s) to receive them and that will cost you $.98 ($.75 to Canada) plus the cost of the card. But, imagine the…
- Exotic postmarks
- Distant Lands
- Mysterious People
- Unique Stamps
I’ve been a member of the site since 2005 and have sent and received 155 cards. But another way you can utilize Postcrossing is to create an account for a child, a sick friend, and elderly relative and send cards in their name. Then for each card that you send, someone from another place (outside the US) will send one to the person you registered. The only downside to doing this is that you don’t always have access to the cards your registered person receives so that you can register the card ID numbers.
The ID numbers are what makes the system work. Each card you send (or receive) will have an ID that must be on the card so that the person who receives the card can go to www.postcrossing and register it. At that point the person who sent it just got their name next on the list to be sent a card. So if your recipient is receiving cards, but nobody is registering them, then the sender does not get the credit. What I’ve done to mitigate this is to explain that in the profile and the sender will email the ID number that I will then register so that they can get credit.
