When we opened our San Francisco Railway Museum five years ago, we knew we had to offer things for sale to pay the bills (since admission is free). But we made a rule: no schlock. We wanted a place that San Franciscans would come to if they wanted a special home-town gift for friends and that visitors saw as a welcome respite from the relentless souvenir shop stuff.
So, we focused on creating our own line of merchandise using images of the streetcars and cable cars. Our “historic travel series“, an homage to the era of classic travel posters, has been very popular, thanks to the work of San Francisco artists John Mattos and David Dugan.
Now, we’ve extended our local artsy offerings to postcards, replacing the prosaic commercial selection we had with a broad variety of new images selected by our store manager, John Hogan, from the great submissions we’ve received for our annual calendar (the 2012 Muni Centennial version of which should be in the museum by early July, by the way). We deliberately wanted postcards with a little attitude instead of the conventional three-quarter-view-of-the-vehicle-with-some-landmark-behind thing (though we do have a few good ones like that in the selection. Hey, they gotta know it’s San Francisco back in [your parents’ town here], right?
This sample comes from gifted San Francisco photographer Jason Brickman, who has contributed ten images to the effort. We have other local photographers represented as well. The cards are 75 cents each or any 10 for $5.00. We won’t be offering these online for now, so come on down and take a look. Lots of other great things in our museum and store as well. F-line Steuart Street stop across from the Ferry Building (77 Steuart Street, in Hotel Vitale). Open 10-6 daily, except Monday.
UPDATE: Our manager, John Hogan, asked that we pass along his appreciation (which we share) for all the photographers who contribute to both our calendar and this new series of postcards. Richard Panse, Steve Ferrario and Jeremy Whiteman have also allowed us to use their work for the new series of postcards. We have already sold almost 1,500 of them. Thanks, guys.
