The Zena Dare Pages - About This Website

For those of you that may not know who I am, my main hobby is antique radios, chiefly those manufactured by Philco. I am irreverently known in antique radio circles as Mr. Philco, THE Philco Radio collector, author of the 1993 book "Philco Radio: 1928-1942."

So how did Mister Philco get sidetracked into the world of Victorian-Edwardian picture postcards?

It all began in the latter part of 1998. I regularly do searches on eBay for the keyword "Philco." As I was doing this, I began to notice that my eBay searches often included this odd name, "Zena Dare."

Who or what is Zena Dare?

So one day, I decided to check out one of these "Zena Dare" auctions. I was immediately captivated by the angelic face looking at me through the portals of time. I had to have the card; I bid on it, and won.

Thus began my fascination with the lovely young lady from London.

Before I knew it, I was in the possession of nearly two hundred postcards, the majority of which pictured Zena, but also included such other lovely ladies as Marie Studholme, Nina Sevening, Gabrielle Ray, Marie Dainton, Mabel Love (who now enjoys her own website), and Zena's own younger sister, Phyllis.

I began to seek information on Zena to learn more about her. The result was this website, which I established in 1999 to share my collection - and what I had learned about this fascinating lady from the past - with the world. Through the kind assistance of other enthusiasts, this website has become THE premiere Zena Dare site on the Web (we are number one in Zena Dare searches on Yahoo, Google, AltaVista and Ask Jeeves).

And we want to thank ALL of you for your support in that effort.

I stopped collecting the cards a couple years after I began. For quite some time the poor ladies languished in a couple of large photo albums, sadly neglected by me. Eventually a more beautiful, elegant, and captivating lady would enter my life - my wife, Jill. Although Jill liked my cards as much as I did, we both realised that they were doing no good just sitting around in albums, never being looked at.

So I sold the majority of my collection, keeping only a few of the cards. However, I shall continue to maintain this website, since many of you have written to me expressing your appreciation for the site. A few of you are also beginning to share their cards with the world through this site. I encourage more of you to do the same by contacting us to find out how you can add images of your cards to our virtual online collection.

Recently the site has undergone a complete makeover, although it may not be very evident as most changes are "behind the scenes." Overall, we have retained the same format and "look." You will only notice minor changes here and there, notably the addition of a few new pages (including this one!), using three columns of pictures on each Gallery page instead of the two previous used, and that the large versions of the cards are larger than before. We also performed some minor housekeeping details while adding even more pictures to our online virtual collection, mostly from another lot of cards I had put away and forgotten about. Also, the backgrounds (where used) are now stationary (watermark) on most newer browsers.