Home | Back to Specialized Resources
 
Postal mail often added some exotica to the QSLing process.

Historic Stations - Nowadays a lot of QSLing is done by email, and a new QSL is still something to look forward to.  But if you were a QSLer in the "olden days" you remember the anticipation you felt, coming home from work or school, thinking about what might await you in your mailbox.  If there was a good-looking envelope, it usually meant a QSL inside.  There was nothing like the colorful stamps, fancy printing, official handstamps, etc. to pique your excitement.  Here are some examples of DX eye candy that surely made for a good day during shortwave's early years (roughly before World War II, but some later).

Post-World War II - Even if your DXing days were well after World War II there was no lack of nice "envelope art."  Many of the best looking envelopes were from Latin America, but there was plenty of competition from elsewhere.  Below are some entries from envelopes received over the years by ontheshortwave's Jerry Berg, and Gerry L. Dexter, well-known DXer and QSLer from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
 

Kermit E. Geary - It's hard to imagine someone with a longer DX history than Kermit Geary.   Born in Lehigh Gap, Pennsylvania but a resident of Walnutport, Pennsylvania for most of his DX career, Kermit joined the National Radio Club in the year of its founding, 1933, and remained a member until 2010 when he passed away at age 92.  He did some shortwave listening, but he DXed mainly mediumwave, where he racked up an impressive record, especially from Latin America.  He kept the envelopes that brought his QSLs, and thanks to the efforts of John Herkimer we are able to present scans of some of them.
 

John Ekwall – Our DX friend in Sweden, John Ekwall, has sent us a bunch of great-looking envelopes that were used by various Latin American stations to send their broadcasting information to World Radio TV Handbook headquarters in Amsterdam, or to Tore Larsson, who edited the Central American section of the handbook for a number of years. These are mostly from mediumwave stations of the mid-1990s. Thanks, John.