Vintage Postcard - A Bit of Worthless Paper or eBay Best Seller?

Vintage postcards are among the most popular and profitable of all items selling on eBay where immense profits are possible especially to the experienced postcard seller. These tips will help you maximise profits for your postcards on eBay.

* Very often the message on the back of the postcard can tell a tale much more interesting than the picture itself. A good example was a postcard I sold recently on eBay, depicting a house and cottage, and the caption: 'Smalls, Salcombe'. It was an ordinary view and the stamp was missing yet cards like this can often make a few dollars on eBay But study the message and you'll sometimes find something to lift the value of your card, as on mine which said: 'The cottage on the other side was burnt down yesterday'. Great message, it means the view disappeared many years ago and also helps date the postcard for anyone inclined to do a little research. Not forgetting: the view that previously looked quite ordinary, is now a rarity, and can entice hot bidding on eBay.

* You should avoid ex-dealers' stock when buying postcards to resell on eBay, or elsewhere for that matter. If those postcards did not sell for another dealer, there's little chance of you selling them either. It can sometimes be difficult to recognise someone else's unsold stock, but a major giveaway of a dealer's cast off can be found on postcards priced on the back in pencil or inked on labels fixed to the item. The same applies to labels on plastic covers containing coins, stamps, philatelic covers. Check the writing very carefully. Similar writing throughout indicates a dealers' stock. A genuine collection would comprise items from lots of different dealers and lots of different handwriting styles on prices on postcards and covers.

* Old fashioned albums designed for inserting postcard corners into cut-out hinges can present a major and very unexpected problem for novice postcard buyers. The problem can be caused innocently by past owners or deliberately by recent sellers. Many years ago newly acquired postcards were often manoeuvred and sometimes manhandled as they were placed beneath hinges and corners often got cracked or creased in the process. So today hundreds of cards may look in spectacular condition in an album that has not been touched for decades but in fact many cracked corners lie hidden and sometimes torn beneath hinges. Today these very old albums are popular with resellers who pack an empty album with unwanted postcards, sometimes to increase the perceived value of high value cards, more often to make the album look to be original while in fact it is packed with worthless rubbish. Very often rogue sellers will used the album to house postcards with badly creased corners or no corners at all. Be very careful when buying vintage albums at auction but do not remove postcards to check the corners, that would result in corners breaking which were previously quite acceptable. Instead view postcards from the back of their appropriate album page where you will usually be able to better see the flaws.

Avril Harper is an eBay PowerSeller and author of BANK BIG PROFITS SELLING VINTAGE TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW POSTCARDS ON EBAY which you can read about at: www.sellpostcardsonebay.com and MAKE MONEY TEARING UP OLD BOOKS AND MAGAZINES AND SELLING THEM ON EBAY which you can read about at: www.magstoriches.com. She has produced a free guide - 103 POWERSELLER TIPS - which you can download with other freely distributable reports and eBooks at www.avrilharper.com

Know a Postcard Is a Potential Best Seller on eBay Before You Even Buy It

Ask this question before you buy any postcard to resell on eBay!

How often could this view have been created since postcards first appeared about 1870 and up to 1939? (At the advent of the Second World War postcard collecting fell into decline and only in the past thirty years has it regained popularity). Most collectors consider 1939 the deadline between what should be called 'old' or 'vintage' and what is better called 'modern'. In time that 1939 deadline will shift, to the 1960s, or 1970s, but with a wealth of really fabulous postcards still existing from the late 1800s and early 1900s I recommend you stick to that 1939 deadline at least until pre-1939 cards run dry. If they ever run dry which is very unlikely!

Here's that question again:

How often could this view have been created since postcards first appeared about 1870 and up to 1939?

And here's the answer:

* If the view could be captured hundreds of times, even thousands, the postcard is not rare and could even be worthless. So churches, parks and beaches that look almost exactly as they did in the late 1800s will not fetch high prices unless some other profitable factor exists alongside.

It's an altogether different matter if the view could be captured just once, because this picture depicts the day the church caught fire, or it shows the Royal Family who visited there once, or it shows police arresting an infamous criminal or an eminent suffragette being released from prison. In reality a really rare view may have existed for minutes or seconds only and few artists and photographers were likely to be present to record the event. On occasion you'll find the card is very rare, even unique, as where something unusual and very unexpected happened which only photographers close to the scene may learn about and record the event. Good examples are railway accidents, colliery disasters, tram crashes.

Avril Harper is a triple eBay PowerSeller and author of BANK BIG PROFITS SELLING VINTAGE TOPOGRAPHICAL VIEW POSTCARDS ON EBAY which you can read about at: www.sellpostcardsonebay.com and MAKE MONEY TEARING UP OLD BOOKS AND MAGAZINES AND SELLING THEM ON EBAY which you can read about at: www.magstoriches.com. She has produced a free guide - 103 POWERSELLER TIPS - which you can download with other freely distributable reports and eBooks at www.avrilharper.com