These little gems, loved in Edwardian times and sought after today, can be seen as miniature works of art, important social history documents or simply a moment in time captured forever. A dedicated collector once said: "My cards are my time-machine, by means of which I can spend an evening with Edwardian actresses, climbing the Matterhorn, dancing the tarantella and flying by balloon to far away places to sing hymns-or simply hop on the Southend Express for a day at the sea." There are millions of superb picture postcards to be collected, resulting from a collecting craze in Edwardian times that was a phenomenon as observed by a writer in the Glasgow Evening News in October 1903: "In ten years Europe will be buried beneath picture postcards."