It’s the third anniversary of The Posted Past this week. I had an essay in mind, something about old asylum buildings. But much like a three-year-old, I was distracted by a shiny toy, a few vexing problems, and the prospect of a new kind of independence for our small social enterprise.
You might notice, there is now a Shop button up in the right corner and in the page menu. Don’t look!
The new Posted Past store is indeed live and there are a few hundred vintage postcards for sale, about half of the stock currently listed on eBay. All duplicates that will have to be de-listed by hand for the moment. Don’t buy anything! This could get messy.
It’s not ready. Why not wait?
I have been planning the transition away from commercial platforms and toward my own online shop for months–cleaning my data, packaging it in batches, attaching images, and writing metadata. Each task gave me a chance to think through the mechanics of my new operations, and deal with the mistakes.
Any shop keep will admit that keeping track of stock is madness. Dad meticulously filed most of the postcards in carefully curated albums. Until he didn’t. Digitizing them brings many more harrowing decisions. I went slightly nuts over naming conventions for a while.
Invariably, some of the early choices have caused extra work in the long run. I spent the day hand-tagging and cross-referencing close to 400 files because I didn’t download something correctly a long time ago. Ah, well. It was nice to see them again.
But don’t you dare look! I have more to do. A few more weeks and the shop will be better. I will go back to writing a proper Wednesday post, too. Truth is, there was no way forward without the mess 🙂
Thanks for your patience. Here… look at some kittens instead!