Art you can afford: vintage (foreign) postcards

I'm always on the look out for interesting art that speaks to me, and I love having an art-filled home.  I have realized that while most people want art on their walls, many people don't have strong feelings about what it should be--they just want it to look good and not break the bank.  While there are now MANY wonderful sites for prints and limited editions, I always love using originals when I can--whether they are works by artists or interesting ephemera.

I was poking around etsy yesterday for a series of 6 small images I could use in a grid of frames in a dining room, when it occurred to me that postcards would be the right side for the mat openings in the frames I want to use.  Usually, I won't use ephemera from a place or an event if it is not personal (i.e. no concert posters if I wasn't there, no matter how awesome the graphic design).  But the postcards I found do not speak to a specific place.

Sometimes everything starts to look the same to me.  These cards are from Russia and Eastern Europe, and I love that they have a different graphic design style than what I see everywhere.

Russia, Female portraits, 1930s-1980s $25 for set of 25

Russia, Folk dancing 1957, $14 for 6 cards

Estonia, Car postcards 1970s, $18 for set of 5

Russian Folk postcards, $13 for set of 8

Ukraine, $23 for 32 cards

Wouldn't these look amazing framed and hung in a grid?  

We'll see what my client thinks about the ones I found for her!

And just for inspiration, here are a couple of rooms that use a series of items hung in a grid.