posted on May 29, 2004 08:16:10 PM new
in a box lot today i found tons 'old' postcards. how old is a card needing one cent, and how old is a card needing
three cent postage. are the ones written on, and mailed of any consequence?
-------------------------------------
thanks myoldtoy
posted on May 30, 2004 04:06:06 AM new
Short and Sweet about dating pc's:
Private Mailing Card: 1898-1901 Card says PMC on back
Pioneer era: Undivided back (only for address)1901-1907
Chromolith : 1907-1920. Many printed in Germany before WWI - the German ones aren't newer than WWI).
White Border: 1920-1935
Linen: 1935-1960
Chrome: 1948 - present (shiny ones we have today)
Condition, as with many collectibles, is everything. Some people are interested in postal history, geneology etc and collect mailed pc's. Others collect cards in pristine condition and prefer unmailed.
The writing on the back may be of consequence to someone. I once listed a postcard and showed a scan of the back - turns out the sender became governor of Kentucky later on and the card brought a very nice price. I sold another card because I listed sender and recipient names and sender was the grandfather of the buyer. I usually don't have time to do all this but every once in awhile it works out!
Age doesn't matter as much as you would think in postcard selling/collecting. I have a PMC in my store that I can't give away and I have sold a chrome for more than $100.
EDited again to add anecdote: I like to read the backs of pc's. When I first started selling I sold quite a few California linens written by a man named "clarence" and sent to his sister in Minneapolis during WWII. I was pretty far into it when I realized that Clarence wrote home every day! I didn't buy a Clarence collection on purpose but evidently the sister sold the cards and they had been resold by several local dealers and that is how I acquired them. As I listed them, I followed Clarence's ups and downs (discharged from the service (sounded like medical) he ended up staying in California during the war to work in a factory. He had trouble holding a job even during the war when man power was in short supply. His cards said what football games he attended, movies , shows etc...they were great! THe last Clarence card I found was one from Oklahoma in the early sixties and then there was another sent to this sister saying he had died. I bet I sold 100 Clarence cards before I realized the story they told!
posted on May 30, 2004 07:41:12 AM new
I had FABULOUS luck finding a huge box of postcards at a garage sale (antique dealer's estate) last year. Bought the entire box of over 500 PC's and misc items for $10.
I knew nothing abouth PCs, except that people collected them. I separated out the dupes - and put a large lot on auction - good closeups - and they sold for nearly $300. Then I had an old art deco styled postcard album to sell - I filled it with about 50-60 of the leftovers - made a beautiful album with all those fancy cards from the early 1900s. Sold for nearly $90 or $100. Buyers were very happy.
I grouped the rest by age or style or theme to get rid of the rest w/o posting them individually.
