I’ve always loved Japan. I visited once, with my mom, in 1986. My dad was a Pan Am pilot and one of the amazing benefits back then was free tickets for family members. I remember seeing Mount Fuji during my visit – it was pretty hard to miss!

In 2006 my daughter (who was in high school then) spent six weeks in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Her father worked for Nissan at the time and they sent employees’ children to Japan every summer as part of the company’s cultural exchange program. She’s a collector of paper ephemera like me and she brought back an amazing collection of vintage Japanese pencil boxes that she’d bought at a dusty old shop across the street from the local post office. Little did she know my mom has a collection of the same thing! Like mother, like daughter, like grandmother…

I bought these postcards at Portland’s Largest Garage Sale last month. I showed up late in the day and didn’t expect to find much, so I was delighted when I spotted these postcards from the 1950s. They were souvenirs brought back by an American serviceman; I bought them from his son.

Don’t you love all these different shots of Mount Fuji?