Serendipity Striketh Once More

I received fan mail in the form of a picture postcard, and this is me returning the favour: off to Sankt Johann in Tirol, Austria, we go!

Today, after an exhausting faculty meeting, I stepped into the mail room—and found the below-reproduced picture postcard:

It shows a few images from Sankt Johann in the Tyrol, a widely known skiing resort town (overflowing in winter), and it was sent to me by someone I cannot identify:

Dear Stephan, it can’t be that the flow of picture postcards stops—even though today’s motives aren’t as spectacular as they used to be. Thank you very much for your interesting work and best wishes, Christian

Now, dear Christian (if I may), I wish to apologise for not being able to thank you in a more direct and personal way—but as there’s no date nor a second name (and my subscriber list didn’t hold any email addresses with that particular name), so this quite public, if rather impersonal, big thank you will have to do.

(While I have one particular suspicion, I hope that you, Christian, will drop me a DM or an email once/if you read these lines.)

I also went to the Erich Sonntag Postcard Collection box—and found a few vintage postcards from that place—and added Christian’s postcard to the collection.

As you will see below, I do raise objections to the assumption that today’s motives are that different, or unspectacular, from those used in the past.

Sankt Johann in Black and White

Above, Sankt Johann with the Wilder Kaiser mountain range in the background; the postcard was mailed, but since it was also glued into a picture album, I can’t tell you much more than—presumably—the interwar period as a timeframe. Below, the centre of town in a postcard mailed in 1954 (the description on the house to the left of the church reads “Postal and Telegraphy Office”):

As the below postcard from 1961 shows, there were happy cows back then, too:

Finally for this section, the “Bear’s Inn” in downtown (sic) Sankt Johann, as shown on a picture postcard mailed in 1952:

Sankt Johann in Bright Colours (and snow)

After the Second World War, Sankt Johann and many other Alpine villages morphed into skiing resorts.

Above and below, a few examples mailed in the 1970s:

The below postcard was mailed in 1966:

Of course, as the second of the coloured postcards indicates, Sankt Johann is also a popular hiking and summer resort, as the below examples indicate:

Above, the “Bear’s Inn” in summer, accompanied below by another summer-themed set of images (both hail from the 1960s)

Finally, a grand total view of Sankt Johann, in colours, from 1965:

So, thanks once again, dear Christian, for taking the time to send a picture postcard to Bergen—what a lovely gesture! I hope you also enjoy these postcards from your holiday abode (I presume)!

As for everybody else who reads this, well, this is what you “risk” if you should send me picture postcards!