Collecting Antique Postcards

By Tracy Crowe

Antique postcards are a wonderful way to learn about the past. Often the only way to see pictures of old buildings, street cars, expositions, or sports and other pastimes, is on a postcard. A collector of postcards usually specializes in a theme: perhaps a particular location or mode of transportation, or a sport or pastime, or in advertising cards. Trains and old sports stadiums are very popular, and fetch high prices. Postcard collectors are often referred to as deltiologists (from the Greek meaning a collector of small pictures or writings).

At the turn of the 20th century, postcards were extremely popular. It is said that visitors to New York's Coney Island mailed 200,000 postcards in a single day in 1906. At the height of their popularity, over a billion cards were sold every year.

Vintage postcards can be found in several places. Flea markets, antique shows, or ephemera (paper) shows often have tables. Auctions are a good place to look for postcards. In the United States there are many postcard clubs which often have public shows.

The same dealers often move from show to show. Some dealers will bargain with you, and others won't. Most dealers give a discount for large purchases. You might want to shop around when you are at a show, because prices of the same postcard might vary with different dealers. There is a wide range of prices of postcards, from as low as a few dollars to more than 50 dollars; the price of the postcard depends on the subject, condition, and scarcity of the postcard.

You may choose to overlook the condition of a card if it is scarce or you need it to add to a collection. You may or may not be interested in the stamp on the postcard. Most postcards are printed on cardboard, but materials such as leather, wood, and even metal have also been used. There is a incredible variety of topics depicted on postcards. There is everything from disasters to greetings (not just holiday greetings but also greetings from a particular place). German "Gruss Aus" cards are very popular.

There have been several artists that have made their living creating pictures specifically produced for postcards. Popular "signed" artists include Ellen Clapsaddle (1865-1934) whose cards show delightful children, and Frances Brundage (1854-1937) among others.

The idea of sending postcards became popular in 1861 when H.L. Lipman from Philadelphia began to privately print cards with the front left blank for a message, and the back left for the address. These cards could be mailed once they had a stamp. Companies quickly realized that printing messages or pictures on the backs of "advertising cards" was an inexpensive way to advertise their products. The US government issued its first postal card in 1873. These were mostly used for advertising. It was the Chicago World's Fair that started a frenzy of sending picture postcards.

The pioneer era of picture postcards was from the 1893 Columbian Exposition to 1898. At that time US Post Office cards could be mailed for one cent, but privately printed cards cost 2 cents to mail. Postal cards were government issued and had pre-printed postage, but postcards were privately printed and required stamps. The backs of cards were "undivided backs" and intended only for writing the name and address. Many of these cards have writing on the front below or along with the picture. These cards are often called souvenir cards or mail cards. Charles Goldsmith, using government postal stock printed several sets of official souvenir postcards for the Columbian Expositions and these were extremely popular. Pre-1900 postcards are rare though.

The Golden Age of Postcards was from 1898-1915. The printing and coloring on these cards were high quality. The passage of the Private Mailing Card Act of 1989 allowed private postcards to be mailed for one cent. The back was still undivided, until 1907 when the requirement for undivided backs was dropped, and the left side could be used for a message. In 1915 World War 1 brought an end to the golden age of postcards.

Many postcards from this era were printed in Europe, especially Germany, which allowed good printing quality. The cards were hand colored, and sometimes the colorer used his imagination. Sometimes a printer would add or subtract an object to make the picture look better. It is not uncommon to find two cards with the same scene except for some object is missing in one of them. For this reason collectors must not assume that old postcards show historically correct images.

Antique postcards are a wonderful peek into the past. Although images are often not historically correct, they give us a picture of what has been (of what people wore, and what they did, and where they did it, and what was important to them) that we often can't get anywhere else.
Tracy Crowe loves looking at old postcards

For information about antique collectables, visit http://antiquecollectablesinfo.com/
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