dennis scharnberg

We had spent the morning flipping through hundreds of postcards. At a place called Rocky’s Antiques. It was basically a junk shop, and the cards and old loose black-and-white photos were stacked into dozens of shoe boxes—each item standing on edge and facing the customer. Like a ragged index system. I came upon an entity that was both postcard and photographic print. An RPPC. It was from the 1920s and presented a portrait of Charlie Poole, staring right out at me, with his banjo upright and resting on a knee. I turned to my buddy Michael and I said: “This is treasure upon the earth.”

Anselm Bligh, A Collection of Miniatures.