Collecting Antique Postcards

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]

Origin of Collecting

Collecting goes back several million years and then some. Today we watch grown men on television digging holes in someone's back garden and getting extremely excited about a piece of pottery or small adornment that is corroded beyond recognition that a long departed ancestor collected several million years ago. Our television archaeologists call in a mechanical digger to shift several tons of dirt to discover nothing and then explain to the viewer over the next hour exactly what all this means to us today and what our ancestors were like then.

Most collectors now that it is not necessary to dig holes in other peoples gardens to find something of value, we have replaced holes with charity shops, junk shops and antique dealers though man appears to have a preoccupations with digging holes and hording, you only have to watch children digging up their parents favourite plants to realise it is a natural instinct and only need look at ourselves to realise collecting tat is inbreed. The signs are refusing to throw anything away and when we do we replace it with something similar that we brought at a bargain price..

There is a point in history that we know little of, did the caveman collect and if he did why? Initially our collecting instinct must have been that of the squirrel or the pack-rat hording food out of necessity and in preparation for a time experience had taught us that it would not be available. Our initial hording instincts may have been food related, the odd horde of nuts, dried fruit and berries and possibly a favourite stone to crack the nuts.

As hunter gatherers man would have found it difficult to collect anything large as the energy required in moving it to follow the food would have outweighed its usefulness so whatever the caveman horded would have been lightweight, probably a favourite fur, the teeth form a good kill or a good club. All things we could wear or adorn ourselves with that had some use or link with the past.

Then we got religion. Man probably had religion from the moment he set foot on earth, we need religion to explain the unexplainable otherwise we would not be able to cope with life as we move from one disaster to another. Having religion gives us another day or two to cope, religion provides a future, a better world and someone to blame for our ills even if that person is ourselves because we failed to follow a certain ritual that if we follow it in the morning when the sun rises life will get better.

Religion needed to be portable, something we could carry as we followed the food from woods to plain, experience taught us to fast when following the food at certain times of the year, we could pray to the sun, moon, stars and wind. Places on our food route could be spiritual, trees set in a certain why to form a natural cathedral or rocks providing the same service. So whatever it was man initially collected had to be portable, could be worn or hung around our neck or attached to our body burning little energy.

Perhaps those collections were a few teeth, seashells, small bones an unusual stone or piece of ore that linked us to better days, displayed our wealth and indicated to others we met that we were good hunters and providers, our display driving interlopers away without a fight or attracting new members to our clan and increasing the gene pool.

At some stage during our evolution we discovered animal husbandry and farming, built elaborate shelters and settled down, then we discovered smelting and began make metal objects. Our religion became static so we made effigies we could place in our homes to protect us against evil spirits. As a community and humans we needed to maintain our links with the past so we appointed a community historian who collated and retained our history speaking it often to the people of our clan.

Like the wheel no one is quiet sure who invented it and exactly when but the most important invention for collectors came about. It was an invention that created new industries, artists, the printing press, the retail industry, the junk shop, antiques markets, spirit level and possibly even the motorcar and certainly the flat pack industry, out of town shopping malls and Ikea, such a momentous invention was never recorded in history or attributed to one man it was the shelf. Of course before he invented the shelf he invented houses with square walls.

Man in his infinite wisdom had created something he would regret for the rest of his and his male offspring's life, something he would be nagged about for several millennium, told that it was not level or secure. The woman of the man that first put up the shelf sat for days looking at it and wondered what her stupid man had invented, what use was it? After several days she realised he had only created something to gather dust and create more work so she placed a load of junk on it that someone had given her and forgot about it.

Perhaps it was at the gods next celebration when the woman of the house invited neighbours round to exchange gifts and share food that the wives of the visiting men noticed the cheap gifts they had exchange the previous year had been given a place of prominence in the host home and felt out done.

Arriving home after a night on the mead and a good meal the men's wives began nagging their husbands to build a shelf and why had they not thought of it first, their husbands did not love them as much as so and so loved his wife. The berated men called on their friend, the man they knew as Chris the Master of his tribe, the man who had invented the shelf and explained that their wives were carping on about his new invention and offered him several dozen sea shells and selected stones to enter their homes and build shelves.

After several years of building shelves for his friends and family Chris the Master of his tribe was invited to distant villages to build shelves. To cope with the work he trained his male children and tribes children to build shelves and became known as Chris "The Man you ask to enter your home to stop carping wives". This was soon shortened to Chris the Carp-enter and then Chris the Carpenter and the wives in celebration and in remembrance of his original name named a feast day after Chris the Master of his tribe that was soon shortened to Chris t' Mas a day you invite your friends round to eat and exchange gifts for your shelf.

That small invention lead to the creation of the bookcase, the display cabinet, the dresser and even the wardrobe and so man became a collector and invented more and more products to store his collections that probably lead to the invention of the stamp and then the postcard.

I have been selling antiques and collectables online since 1999 having taken early retirement from working in the merchant banking industry. I had been collecting antique silver for several years, silver being my first love. My second loves is a tossup between books and postcards and have provided advice on postcards to several TV collecting programmes and have also written several articles on collecting and business banking for national newspapers. I am also asked by local auction houses to research unusual ceramics and marks.

My website sells almost anything that is collectable, regrettably, there is insufficient time in the day to upload all the items I buy and could also be accused of hording as my home is also full of the junk I buy and many of the mistakes.

[http://www.collectable-postcards.com]

Collecting Postcards Divided Back - Post Cards

Early postal regulations permitted only the name and address of the recipient on backs of postcards. Messages on the front often defaced the image. By 1907 the United States Postal Service began to permit the use of what is now called a divided back Post Card. The back of the postcard had a line down the middle to provide space for both the address and a message.
This new regulation and others in the early 1900s started a national obsession in this country that lasted for almost two decades. American's were buying postcards at the rate of more than 700 million a year and it seems that they were saving most of them. Often putting them in albums and scrapbooks. Most homes in the United States had a special place for postcards, usually the parlor.
A number of beautiful and pleasing postcards were made in Germany and Austria, where fine color reproduction was less expensive than elsewhere. Many postcards bearing the names of American publishers were printed abroad. Wherever their postcards were printed, American publishers continued to strive for unique topics such as town views and birthday greeting postcards. Now picture postcards were more than just a means of communication. They provided a portrait of life in America during the first two decades of the twentieth century.
In 1913, American's bought over 900 million postcards. However, by 1914 postcard usage suddenly came to a halt due in part to four reasons. (1) German printers dominated the postcard manufacturing business until the enactment of the Payne-Aldrich Tariff which in effect cut off low cost imported postcards, along with many other goods. (2) American printers did not have the same printing technology that the German's possessed. (3) The arrival and introduction of low cost folded greeting cards with envelopes. and (4) World War 1.
The end of the "Golden Age" of postcards (1901-1915) ushered in the American "White Border Era".







Glyn Farber has published a catalog of all known Hickey Brother Cigar Store Tokens and co-authored a book about Louisiana Trade Tokens. In addition he wrote several articles for The Token and Medal Society (TAMS) and The National Token Collectors Association (NTCA). Glyn has been a devoted collector of Louisiana Trade Tokens, Louisiana collectibles and Lake Charles, LA postcards for almost 40 years.
Find out more information about divided back postcards, Collectibles and Trade Tokens at his web sites http://www.most-popular-collectibles-at-auction.com and http://www.louisiana-trade-tokens.com

Collecting Postcards Post Card Era

On December 24, 1901 the United States Postal Service approved the use of the words Post Card to be printed on the backs of privately printed postcards. This USPS change of 1901 allowed postcard publishers and printers to drop the message "Private Mailing Cards, Authorized by Act of Congress on May 19, 1898". Writing was still not permitted on the back and a 1 cent stamp was still required to mail a Post Card. By 1902, the postcard industry was off and running, and so was the hobby of collecting postcards.
One popular publisher in the early 1900s was The Albertype Company of Brooklyn, NY. The company was owned by Herman L. Wittemann and he published postcards from 1890 to 1952. Wittemann used a photo process invented by Austrian photographer Joseph Albert (1825-1886). His postcards used a special process. Photographs would be taken by Wittemann's representatives and he would arrange to use photographs taken by others.
Another popular publisher was The Rotograph Postcard Company located in New York City and Chicago. This company published as many as 60,000 postcards dealing with a variety of subjects ranging from scenic views of towns and cities to real photo's.
Both The Rotograph Postcard Company and The Albertype Company made postcards during the early "Post Card" period. As mentioned above writing was not permitted on the backs. To make their postcards attractive and appealing photographs of towns views were on the front. A small space usually at the bottom of the photograph was available for a short message. If you wanted to write a longer message a USPS Postal Card was used.
Post Card users loved to send home postcards from far away places they visited or exchange postcards with friends and family. By 1907 the United States Postal Service began to permit the use of what is now called a "divided back".







Glyn Farber has published a catalog of all known Hickey Brother Cigar Store Tokens and co-authored a book about Louisiana Trade Tokens. In addition he wrote several articles for The Token and Medal Society (TAMS) and The National Token Collectors Association (NTCA). Glyn has been a devoted collector of Louisiana Trade Tokens, Louisiana collectibles and Lake Charles, LA postcards for almost 40 years.
Find out more information about the Post Cards Era, Collectibles and Trade Tokens at his web sites http://www.most-popular-collectibles-at-auction.com and http://www.louisiana-trade-tokens.com

Collecting Postcards - Private Mailing Cards

The inventor of the first private postcard in the United States was J. P. Carlton of Philadelphia, who applied for a patent on Dec. 17, 1861. He then sold his patent to H. L. Lipman, who printed postcards with a decorated border and marked "Lipman's Postal Cards".
In America the United States Postal Service published and printed its first postal cards in 1873. They were sold for 1 cent, while privately produced cards needed a two cent stamp, the same as a letter. For that reason, few postcards were produced privately because the privately printed postcards cost more to mail.
However, on May 19, 1898, Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act which allowed private printers and publishers to produce postcards. The Act required that private publishers print the message Private Mailing Cards, Authorized by Act of Congress on May 19, 1898 on the backs of their cards. Postage required was now a 1 cent stamp.
Like Postal Cards, the Private Mailing Cards allowed only address information on the backs of the card. Many pictorial private mailing cards compensated by leaving a small blank area along an edge for the sender to write a few words to the recipient. Pictorial "Private Mailing Cards" are very rare today.
Postal Card quickly became a term reserved to cards printed by the Post Office. Privately printed cards which required stamps for posting were called "Private Mailing Cards" and later called a "Post Card". Postal Card or Postal is still a term most appropriately applied to official United States postal stationery.
In 1901 the practice of "Private Mailing Cards" was rescinded and all privately produced cards were printed using the words "Post Card" printed on the undivided backs.







Glyn Farber has published a catalog of all known Hickey Brother Cigar Store Tokens and co-authored a book about Louisiana Trade Tokens. In addition he wrote several articles for The Token and Medal Society (TAMS) and The National Token Collectors Association (NTCA). Glyn has been a devoted collector of Louisiana Trade Tokens, Louisiana collectibles and Lake Charles, LA postcards for almost 40 years.
Find out more information about Private Mailing Cards, Collectibles and Trade Tokens at his web sites http://www.most-popular-collectibles-at-auction.com and http://www.louisiana-trade-tokens.com

Collecting Postcards - Postal Cards

A Postal Card is a type of postcard that was first released by the United States Postal Service in 1873. The destination address, return address and the preprinted postage was on the back side of Postal Cards. The entire front side of Postal Cards could be used to write a message. The very first Postal Cards issued were 5 ½ inches by 3 ½ inches, which is the same size used today. In 1873 a Postal Card could be purchased for one cent. By 1879 the cost increased to two cents and then back to one cent in 1885. Up until 1956 the cost of Postal Cards varied from one cent to two cents and at times three cents. In 1956 the postage increased to 4 cents and has risen gradually ever since.
The 1873 Postal Card had a preprinted image of Miss Liberty similar to the capped bust liberty used on coins of the early 1800s. The image also indicated the postal rate of one cent. In 1875 the image changed to a more ornate Capped Liberty framed with Roman Fasces on either sides. The traditional Roman Fasces consisted of a bundle of birch rods tied together with a ribbon around an axe. The Fasces symbolize power and jurisdiction. A single Roman Fasces can also be found on the reverse of a Mercury Dime (1916-1945).
A third Miss Liberty was used until the late 1800s. In 1885 the image of Thomas Jefferson appeared on Postal Cards. Followed by Ulysses S. Grant in 1891 and then John Adams. A few months after the assassination of President William McKinley his image appeared on USPS Postal Cards. By 1911 the image was once again change, this time to Abraham Lincoln.
As you can see Postal Cards went through many phases and for many years the USPS had a monopoly on Postal Cards. However, on May 19, 1898 Congress passed the Private Mailing Card Act that allowed private publishers and printers to produce postcards.







Glyn Farber has published a catalog of all known Hickey Brother Cigar Store Tokens and co-authored a book about Louisiana Trade Tokens. In addition he wrote several articles for The Token and Medal Society (TAMS) and The National Token Collectors Association (NTCA). Glyn has been a devoted collector of Louisiana Trade Tokens, Louisiana collectibles and Lake Charles, LA postcards for almost 40 years.
Find out more information about Postal Cards, Collectibles and Trade Tokens at his web sites http://www.most-popular-collectibles-at-auction.com and http://www.louisiana-trade-tokens.com

Collecting Ephemera

Do you collect Ephemera (e phem er a)? You just might and don't even know it, because Ephemera refers to hundreds of hand written or printed paper items published with a short intended life span or something short-lived and without lasting significance. The word Ephemera derives from the Greek meaning of things lasting no more than a day.

Some of the most popular items that collectors classify as Ephemera are bank checks, baseball cards, billheads, bonds, brochures, business cards, calendars, cigar box labels & bands, greeting cards, invitations, labels, letters, magazines, maps, newspapers, pamphlets, paper dolls, passes, photographs, postcards, posters, stamps, posters, programs, sheet music, stocks, tickets, timetables, trade cards, trade catalogs and vintage valentines.

Some types of Ephemera such as billheads, postcards and trade cards have been appreciated for years. In fact vintage postcard collecting has been around for a very long time and is still very popular today. Some of the other items mentioned above were generally thrown out over the years. Fortunately, there has been a few collectors with the insight to put a value on things that others did not.

So take a close look at that box of old paper items found at Grandma's house. You just might find postcards sent to her by Aunt Lucy decades ago, letters your grandfather wrote overseas defending the United States, newspapers with headlines about the death of JFK, photographs she took while on vacation, and maybe even a copy of her wedding invitation.

Twenty Five years ago antique and flea market dealers could hardly give away large boxes of paper ephemera. The very best and rarest old paper items will soon disappear from the marketplace. However, new ephemera is constantly being made. So do not miss out on this small part of Americana. Don't have any Ephemera of your own? Check out our favorite place - eBay!

Find out more information about Ephemera, Collectibles and Trade Tokens at these 2 web sites http://www.most-popular-collectibles-at-auction.com and http://www.louisiana-trade-tokens.com

Collecting Postcards of Ceylon

Why collect postcards of Ceylon? Because not many people do and it can be a rewarding hobby.

Collecting old postcards is fun - it's fun to track them down, fascinating to study them, and an intriguing way to learn about the past.

The past? Yes, for postcard collecting to be rewarding, you need to focus on a period when picture postcards were a novelty. That means the period at the turn of the 20th century, early 1900 to about 1920.

The pictures on postcards that are a hundred years old are views of a different world.

To make your hobby even more interesting, focus on a particular country or topic.

I suggest collecting postcards of Ceylon as the country no longer exists with that name. It's been called Sri Lanka since 1972, and gained independence from Great Britain in 1948.

In addition, as Ceylon was a popular port of call for steamships plying between Britain and Australia, passengers staying there for a few days (or even weeks) eagerly sought out postcards to send to friends and family back home.

That's resulted in postcards of Ceylon turning up in many countries of Europe, in Australia, and even in the USA, so there are plenty of sources to find Ceylon postcards, even today.

Antique shops generally have a few old postcards tucked away in shoe boxes. Don't expect them to be sorted in any order. You'll just have to leaf through them all.

One problem with collecting something particular is that it is so easy to lose focus and get sidetracked. It's important when confronted with a shoebox stacked with old postcards to concentrate on what you want. You're collecting Ceylon so don't bother to buy cards of the Andamans or India however attractive they might be.

In most antique shops you should be able to pick up postcards for a couple of dollars or a pound or two, unless they are highly desirable, like a postcard of a topless native girl (they do exist) which would be more expensive.

Other sources of Ceylon postcards are specialist map and print dealers. You will also find vintage postcards of Ceylon at the bouquainistes, those dealers selling from boxes perched on the parapet walls of the Seine in Paris.

You should also be able to find them in antique shops in Sri Lanka, although it is unlikely you'll discover mint stock from the 1920s. Some might turn up in the libraries of tea plantation bungalows, forgotten by the many occupants over the years. A modern source, of course, are Internet sites.

The main attraction of collecting vintage postcards from Ceylon (rather than from, say, Singapore) is the amazing number of topics available. Postcards showing tea plantations and tea pluckers are popular, while postcards of railways are rare because of demand by "theme" collectors.

Ceylon's main port, Colombo, is a common view since that's where steamship passengers disembarked in the early 20th century. More sought after are old postcards of 19th century hotels, like the Galle Face and Mount Lavinia Hotels, and The Queen's Hotel in Kandy.

Village views are good to collect, especially if they are of villages that have grown into towns today. People doing odd things that we no longer see, like carrying water on a yoke, pulling a rickshaw, or driving a 1920s car are fun to have.

Equally collectible are postcards of religious sites and ancient ruins (Ceylon has a lot of those) to see how they have changed. Beach scenes are picturesque as beaches weren't the desirable holiday spots they are today.

Postcards of the period are usually printed in black and white. If they have been hand coloured they then become a unique work of art, different from any other postcard showing the same view. Especially attractive are the "Oilette" series of colour postcards published by Raphael Tuck & Sons in England in the 1920s.

How to store your postcards? Putting them in a firm transparent envelope and keeping them in a shoebox is better than sticking them in an album. When they are in a transparent envelope, you can see both sides of the card.

Sometimes the postage stamps or what is written on the back of a postcard is as interesting as the photograph. One card on sale recently was of the Galle Face Hotel on which someone had written in classic script: "This is the only thing free in this hotel."

The best way to display your best postcards is to frame them. Because a postcard is fairly small (about 5 ?" by 3 ?"), its impact will be lost if put in a frame about the same size. Better to choose a large frame and have a huge mount with large margins of a dark colour.

That way the viewer's eye is directed to the postcard and all its glory, and it will be the pride of your collection.

Royston Ellis, author of over 60 biographies, novels and travel guides, now lives in Sri Lanka having left England, where he began as a beat poet, in 1961, age 20, for a life of travel. His latest book, The Big Beat Scene, has just been published by Music Mentor Books. To collect postcards of Ceylon he recommends this site: http://ceylonpostcards.com

http://roystonellis.com

The Joy of Collecting Postcards

Postcard collecting is one of the most popular hobbies in the world. The Internet makes it easy to track down favorite artists, postcards from your childhood, or beautiful pictures of the world around you. Whether you're a serious collector or just some who likes the pictures, postcard collecting is an amazing and exciting hobby.

When I was a little kid, my Dad would travel a lot for his job. No matter where he was he would find me a postcard and send it. I held onto them for years. He traveled all over the United States and Europe. I got postcards from Georgia, California, Norway, and Turkey. I loved them because I loved my dad but they were all incredible looking too. I still have most of them and every once in awhile I take them out and reminisce.

Serious collectors may choose to limit their collections to cards to specific publishers and artists or by time and location or by type of postcard. Antique postcards date back to the first postcards printed during the civil war by J.P., Carlton. He transfered the copyright to H.L. Lipman and Lipman Postal Cards were sold until 1873 when the U.S. Government got into the business. Nine years later European countries were also producing postcards. Antique postcards have gained popularity in the past few years because many kinds of messages and layouts have almost disappeared. Most collectors see to it that they store and display their collection in the best possible way.

Historical societies are major collectors of Real Photo postcards because of their importance in research about how a city looked at a particular time or what people were doing. Real photo postcards show many slices of historical life such as town streets, families, and buildings that are no longer there. With a large enough collection you can get a very good sense of the development of a town or city. Postcards provide an incomparable glimpse into the society during the period they were used.

Worldwide, delitology is the third largest hobby. If you are starting a postcard collection, go after the ones that you have an interest in. Part of the joy of postcard collecting is knowing a single acquisition found in a unexpected place may begin a journey to unknown destinations.

Jay Corbin runs the Great Postcard Auctions website where you can find many Real Photo
Georgia postcards and other postcards for your collection.

The Joys and Profits of Deltiology (Collecting Post Cards)

I'vde always loved postcards. At first, I was interested in the messages. Postcards provide an incomparable glimpse into the society during the period they were used. Some messages were funny, some sad, and some just plain strange. One, showing a donkey on the front read, "When are going stop being an a** and write to me?" Another, "This is a photo of the town. The place I marked with an X is where a father and his two sons were killed when a train stuck their haywagon. We're holding a memorial service on Wednesday." The strangest one I ever read was: "Ellen thinks you're a lobster. I think you're cute. Doris." It sounds to me as if Doris had an interest in the recipient. What she meant about him being a lobster, I don't know.

I also loved the images. Postcards were in some cases minitaure photographs of a bygone era. Real photo postcards can be found showing town streets, families, motorcycles, circuses, deep-sea diving equipment, nudes and just about any other topic you can imagine, including lynchings. I once purchased a horrendous collection of six cards that showed scenes of the 1916 genocide of Armenians in Palestine, including one with soldiers showing off the heads of three of their victims. Fortunately, most cards deal with happier topics.

Non-real-photo cards abound and show can show just about anything.

Pretty women are a common topic and are very collectible. Some artists such as Beaulieu and F. Earle Christie, are extremely popular and can bring in the hundreds of dollars.

Holidays were by far the most popluar subjects and literally millions of Christmas postcards can still be found. Most are of little value, but Santa Clauses are always collectible. Find one in a yellow or green suit and you have a minor treasure. Ones that have been manufactured to light up when viewed are known as hold-to-light or HTLs. Most of these are very collectible and some are worth in the hundreds of dollars. If you ever find a HTL with Uncle Sam as Santa, you have one that is worth in the thousands of dollars. Easter is probably the least-favored topic. The most favored by far is Halloween.

Halloween cards were popular at the time they were sent. Collectors avidly put them aside, and for this reason, a large number of the cards are still available. Today, the creme de la creme of the Halloween card are the ones by the Winsch Brothers of Germany. The quality of the cards and beauty of the designs have always made them popular. Today, they are worth in the hundreds of dollars in top condition.

So far we haven't mentioned condition. As with all collectibles, condition is the main concern besides content. Tears, missing corners, creases, any of these can reduce a valuable card to next to nothing. I have seen more rare cards with these problems than I care to think of. Anyone interested in collecting cards must keep condition in mind at all times.

Fads can affect price, too. At one time, real photo postcards were considered so undesirable that a purchaser would pull them out and discard them as worthless. Now they are among the most valuable. In the early 1900s, cards showing flowers or woodland scenes were the desired one. They were also the most common. During the heyday of the postcard, more than a billion were delivered in a single year. Today, woodland scenes and flowers are worth next to nothing. The despised real photos showing main street will always bring at least five dollars in good condition. Long sets showing carnivals or circuses are worth in the thousands.

If you are starting a postcard collection, go after the ones that you have an interest in. If you live in a particular neighborhood in a city, you can usually find cards to collect. Nearly every important building in every city has been photographed and made into a card at one time or another. If you have a hobby, look for cards dealing with Chess or gardening, or whatever else your fancy. If you have no idea where to begin, eBay or a local postcard show are your best bets. You will get an idea of prices and what's available. Plus you'll meet some great people while you're at it.

Finally, in a single word: ENJOY!

John Anderson has sold collectibles for more than three decades. At present he is retired and is a full-time free-lance writer. His first novel, The Cellini Masterpiece, was published by iUniverse under the penname of Raymond John (ISBN 0595328059). John welcomes correspondence. If you have a question or would like to contact him, please log on to http"//http://www.cmasterpiece.com