What Are Exaggeration Postcards?

An exaggeration postcard is a humorous postcard that combines photography, illustration, or both to create an intentionally impossible scene. Giant vegetables are loaded onto railroad cars, fishermen struggle with fish larger than their boats, grasshoppers tower over farmhouses, and rabbits become large enough to pull a wagon.

These cards are also known as tall-tale postcards, freak postcards, or fantasy postcards. The terms are often used interchangeably, although some collectors reserve “tall-tale postcard” for images in which a comic caption helps complete the joke.

Exaggeration postcards became popular during the great American postcard craze of the early 20th century. Many of the best-known examples were produced between approximately 1908 and the early 1920s, although later versions continued to appear for decades.

At first glance, these cards can look like little more than novelty souvenirs. At their best, however, they are imaginative examples of early photographic manipulation and visual storytelling. Long before digital editing, postcard photographers were cutting, combining, enlarging, retouching, and rephotographing images to create convincing worlds of impossible abundance.

Visual tall tales

Exaggeration postcards grew from the same tradition as American tall tales.

Stories about enormous fish, impossible harvests, powerful animals, and superhuman feats had long been part of rural humor. The postcard transformed those spoken stories into pictures.

A farmer no longer needed to claim that his cabbages were as large as houses. He could mail photographic “proof.”

The joke depended on presenting an obvious impossibility with a straight face. The scene might show a work crew slicing a watermelon with a logging saw or a group of farmers loading a single potato onto a freight car. A caption would insist that this was simply the way crops grew in Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, California, or whichever place the sender happened to be visiting.

The recipient was not generally expected to believe the image. The fun came from joining the joke.

Agriculture, hardship, and the fantasy of abundance

The giant produce cards were particularly popular across the Midwest and Great Plains.

Farm life during the period could be difficult and unpredictable. Drought, storms, insects, floods, poor harvests, and unstable crop prices threatened rural communities. Exaggeration cards offered a comic reversal of those conditions. Instead of failing crops, they showed potatoes so large that teams of horses could barely move them.

The images also parodied the promotional claims that railroad companies, land agents, and town boosters had used to attract settlers west. Advertisements promised rich soil, endless opportunity, and harvests of almost unbelievable abundance. Exaggeration cards pushed that language until the promise became visibly absurd.

At the same time, the cards could still function as regional advertising. A traveler might send home a giant-corn postcard captioned “How We Grow It in Iowa,” playfully promoting the state while acknowledging that the claim was nonsense.

Exaggeration postcards therefore operated on several levels at once. They were jokes, souvenirs, local booster material, and affectionate satires of rural life.

How the images were made

The best photographic exaggeration cards were created through photomontage.

A photographer would first make a background image containing the people, wagon, railroad car, barn, or landscape. The participants were posed as though they were lifting, pushing, cutting, or reacting to an object that was not actually present.

A second photograph would be made of the featured object, such as a fish, pumpkin, cabbage, rabbit, or ear of corn. The photographer enlarged that object, cut it from the print, and pasted it into the background scene.

The completed montage was then photographed again. This new negative combined the separate pieces into what appeared to be a single scene. Prints could then be made from that negative on postcard paper or reproduced mechanically in larger quantities.

Surviving working photographs reveal how carefully some scenes were planned. The Wisconsin Historical Society preserves Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. mock-ups showing men pushing invisible vegetables up ramps and children holding empty spaces where giant fruit would later appear.

The technique was entirely physical. Edges were cut by hand, shadows were painted or retouched, and separate photographs had to be scaled so the finished illusion made visual sense.

Some artists also used multiple exposures, forced perspective, painted details, or heavily retouched negatives. Later publishers produced illustrated and color-printed versions that imitated the same style without relying on an original photographic composite.

Are exaggeration postcards RPPCs?

Some exaggeration postcards are genuine real photo postcards, but many are not.

An RPPC is a photographic print made on postcard-backed paper. A photographic exaggeration card can therefore be a genuine RPPC even though the scene it depicts was assembled from several different photographs.

This distinction occasionally causes confusion. “Real photo” describes the physical printing process, not the truthfulness of the image.

Under magnification, a genuine RPPC should display continuous photographic tones. A mechanically printed card will show a regular pattern of dots, lines, or other printing marks.

William H. Martin's early exaggeration cards were commonly produced as real photo postcards. Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. also issued photographic cards, but many surviving Johnson examples are mechanically printed halftones. The same basic design may occasionally appear in more than one format.

Photographic versions generally retain more detail and are usually more desirable than later printed reproductions. However, a visually strong printed card by an important publisher can still be collectible.

William H. “Dad” Martin

William H. “Dad” Martin of Ottawa, Kansas, is generally regarded as one of the pioneers of the commercial exaggeration postcard.

Martin began producing his composite cards in 1908. His scenes featured enormous fruits, vegetables, livestock, fish, game animals, and farm equipment. Tiny workers harvested giant crops or attempted to transport them with horses, carts, and railroad cars.

The cards became remarkably successful. By 1909, Martin had constructed a two-story building behind his home and employed approximately 20 people. Archival accounts report that the operation was producing around 10,000 cards per day.

Martin often changed the captions to suit the market in which a card was sold. The same photograph could therefore claim to depict farming in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, or another state.

In 1912, Martin sold the business to William S. Fallis and William H. Jones. The operation was moved to Kansas City and became the North American Post Card Company. Martin's negatives and designs continued to circulate after his departure.

Because captions were customized and images were widely distributed, a location printed on a Martin card should not automatically be treated as the place where the photograph was made.

Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr.

Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. worked from Waupun, Wisconsin, and became another leading creator of tall-tale postcards.

Johnson began producing exaggeration images around 1909 and continued creating new designs into the 1920s. His catalog included giant vegetables, fish, frogs, chickens, rabbits, automobiles, and increasingly elaborate scenes of rural life.

Where Martin's postcard career was commercially intense but relatively brief, Johnson developed the genre over a longer period. His scenes often contain more people, complicated action, and carefully planned interactions between the human figures and the enlarged object.

Johnson's business also allowed postcard dealers to purchase his designs in quantity and customize them for particular towns. Advertising on surviving cards offered dozens of different “freak” designs at wholesale prices, with local wording available for large orders.

As a result, a Johnson card captioned “How We Do Things at Spokane” may have no direct photographic connection to Spokane. The town name may simply identify where the card was sold.

Johnson issued both real photo and mechanically printed cards. Collectors should examine the format rather than relying on the photographic appearance of the scene.

Other photographers and publishers

Martin and Johnson are the most frequently discussed creators, but they were far from alone.

Photographers and publishers such as F.D. Conard, Edward H. Mitchell, Oscar Erickson, M.W. Bailey, H.M. Brown, and J.H. White produced their own versions of oversized crops, enormous animals, and comic local events.

Some were regional photographers creating original montages. Others copied successful designs or reproduced photographs obtained from established publishers.

The genre also spread beyond the Midwest. California publishers issued postcards showing enormous oranges, redwoods, fish, and desert plants. Pacific Northwest cards featured giant salmon, apples, potatoes, timber, and wildlife. Resort communities used monster fish and implausible hunting scenes to promote local recreation.

By the middle of the century, the visual language of the exaggeration postcard had become familiar enough that printed tourist cards could reuse the joke without attempting a convincing photographic illusion.

Common subjects

Giant produce is the subject most strongly associated with exaggeration postcards. Corn, potatoes, onions, peaches, apples, cabbages, tomatoes, watermelons, and pumpkins appear as large as buildings or freight cars.

Fishing cards are nearly as common. Anglers pose beside fish that require wagons, cranes, or teams of horses to move. Hunting scenes replace ordinary rabbits, deer, ducks, grasshoppers, and frogs with creatures large enough to threaten the hunters.

Other cards show enormous eggs, livestock, insects, trees, or local products. People ride giant animals, use farm machinery for household tasks, or encounter impossible weather. Some depict mythical creatures such as the fur-bearing trout.

The best examples do more than enlarge a single object. They build an entire joke around the scale of the subject and the reactions of the people trying to manage it.

Local captions and false locations

Collectors should be especially cautious with location captions.

Publishers knew that a card was easier to sell when it appeared to describe the buyer's town or state. Many exaggeration designs were therefore issued with interchangeable wording such as “How We Grow Potatoes in Idaho” or “A Typical Day's Catch in Minnesota.”

The background may have been photographed hundreds of miles away, and the same scene may survive with captions naming several different places.

This does not make the card a modern fake. The localized caption may be completely original to the period. It simply means that the card should be treated as a comic souvenir rather than documentary evidence of a particular town.

A true local connection requires additional evidence, such as a recognizable building, photographer's address, original negative record, or background landscape that can be independently identified.

Identifying older cards and later reproductions

Most early exaggeration postcards are standard postcard size and have divided backs. Genuine period examples may be postmarked, written upon, or printed on photographic paper associated with the early postcard era.

The card should still be studied as a complete object. Paper, printing method, publisher markings, stamp box, caption style, and natural aging can all help determine whether it is an early issue or a later reproduction.

Modern copies frequently reuse famous Martin and Johnson images. They may be printed on bright white paper, have modern typography on the back, or lack the subtle tonal range of an early photographic print.

A clean card is not automatically a reproduction, and a damaged card is not automatically old. Comparison with institutional examples is often the most reliable approach.

The Wisconsin Historical Society's Johnson collection is particularly valuable because it preserves finished cards, working photographs, and mock-ups used to create the composites.

Notes and market conditions from North West Postcards

Exaggeration postcards remain an active but relatively affordable collecting field.

Common later printed cards frequently appear between approximately $5 and $10. Ordinary early examples, including many unattributed RPPCs and printed Johnson designs, often fall between approximately $10 and $25.

Stronger cards by W.H. Martin, A.S. Johnson Jr., or another identified creator may justify prices in the $20 to $50 range when the image is sharp, the composition is especially entertaining, or the subject is less commonly encountered.

Scarce early photographic variants, unusual local captions, dramatic hunting or fishing subjects, and particularly sophisticated montages can sell for more. Exceptional cards may move into high double digits or beyond, but these are not representative of the entire market.

Value is influenced by the creator, format, rarity of the design, quality of the illusion, condition, and visual appeal. An early Martin RPPC will generally attract more attention than a common later printed version, but a memorable image can sometimes outweigh the difference in format.

Collectors also enjoy related groups. A set of giant-produce cards, several versions of the same image with different state captions, or a run of cards by a single photographer can be more interesting together than individually.

Asking prices should not be confused with completed sales. Many common exaggeration cards remain listed for extended periods, particularly when dealers price every early example as though it were rare.

Collector's perspective

Exaggeration postcards are easy to enjoy.

They require very little historical knowledge to understand, yet they reward closer study. A funny card may also reveal the techniques of an early photographic studio, the business practices of a regional publisher, and the way a community promoted itself to outsiders.

Their imperfections are part of the appeal. Cut edges may be visible, shadows may point in the wrong direction, and a giant fish may not sit convincingly on the wagon intended to carry it. These flaws reveal the hands-on process by which the image was created.

The cards are also reminders that photographic manipulation is nearly as old as photography itself. Early viewers understood that the images were inventions, but the use of a photograph gave the joke a special authority.

More than a century before Photoshop, a farmer could mail home proof that his town grew the largest potatoes in America.

Additional reading

• "W. H. Martin", Smithsonian American Art Museum.
• "Guide to the William H. (Dad) Martin Exaggerated Postcards", University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections.
• "Tall-Tale Postcards", PBS Wisconsin.
• "Alfred Stanley Johnson Jr. Tall-Tale Postcards", Wisconsin Historical Society.
• "Exaggeration Postcards", History Nebraska.
• "Tall Tale Postcard Collection", Michigan State University.
• Tall-Tale Postcards: A Pictorial History, Fred Tenney and Kevin Hilbert, 1990.
• Exaggeration Postcards of A. S. Johnson Jr., 1909–1923, Joyce M. Tice.

Example postcards