Sent or received a postcard lately?  I thought not.  Time was--before email, instant-messaing, and e-social netowrking--when people eagerly awaited the little postal card with a picture on the front and a brief message on the back.

Beyond the mssage, there was so much to be learned from the postmark, from the stamp, from the image itself. And postcards--unlike cyber communications--were tangible things to be savored and saved. 

 So it is today that while postcards are seldom sent, they are often collected.  Which is what brings me to the world's largest postcard shop, a massive (but easily missed) building on southbound U.S. Route 40 in Perryville, Maryland.

The 10,000-square foot structure used to be a car deadlership.  It's still a dealership, but instead of cars, there are cards, though how many is anyone's guess. "We have millions of cards," says he proprietor, Mary L. Martin, 42, whose late mother, also Marly L. Martin, started the business in 1962. "I don't know how many. We have a lot."...

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