Most of the hand-tinted postcards shown here predate The Great Depression and feature scenes long since changed or gone altogether. Beside the historic focus, all had color applied after the image was taken through hand-tinting or any number of automated tinting processes that give them the rich hues. They all represent a period in photography and its' processing when color hadn't quite caught up to its black and white counterpart.

By the early 1930s, linen paper and the inks that it required had replaced the various tinting processes and, more importantly, the scenes these posteards hoped to capture had in many cases disappeared completely.

The collections are primarily centered around maritime and coastal themes such as lighthouses, shipwrecks, harbors and coast lines.