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| What do you collect? | Fashion + Jewelry | Watches + Clocks | Pottery + Glass | Furniture + Home | Art + Photos | Music + Movies | Toys + Games | Sports | Coins + Stamps | Paper + Books | Advertising | Autos + Transport. | Eras | Other » |
Postcards became popular at the turn of the 20th Century, especially for sending short messages to friends and relatives. They were collected right from the start, and are still sought after today by collectors of pop culture, photography, advertising, wartime memorabilia, local history, and many other categories.
Postcards were an international craze, published all over the world. The Detroit Publishing Co. and Curt-Teich were two of the major publishers in the U.S, and sometimes individuals printed their own postcards as well...
There are many types of collectible vintage postcards. Hold-to-light postcards were made with tissue paper surrounded by two pieces of regular paper, so light would shine through. Fold-out postcards, popular in the 1950s, had multiple postcards attached in a long strip. Real photograph postcards (RPPCs) are photographs with a postcard backing.
Novelty postcards were made using wood, aluminum, copper, and cork. Silk postcards – often embroidered or with a printed image – were wrapped around cardboard and sent in see-through glassine paper envelopes, and were especially popular during WW1. In the 1930s and 1940s, postcards were printed on brightly colored paper designed to look like linen.
Most vintage postcard collectors focus on themes, like Christmas, Halloween, portraits of movie stars, European royalty and U.S. presidents, wartime imagery, and photos of natural disasters. Not to mention cards featuring colorful pictures by famous artists like Alphonse Mucha, Harrison Fisher, Ellen Clapsaddle, and Francis Brundage.
With vintage postcards, subject matter, condition, and rarity, plus general desirability and demand, determine value.
In 1994, I had the great pleasure of acquiring the complete archive of Walker Evans for the Metropolitan Muse… [more]
I worked for 35 years as a reference librarian with the Madison Public Library and I just got interested in M… [more]
Andreas Praefcke (Ravensburg, Germany) collects postcards of old and new theatre buildings worldwide. His com… [more]
"Organized in 1985, our mission is to foster and promote postcard collecting in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area … [more]
This collection of over 2000 postcards provides a peek at life in and around Delaware in the early 1900s. Browse g… [read review or visit site]
Andreas Praefcke's postcard collection of theatres and concert halls worldwide. Showcases 3700 images of over 1810 … [read review or visit site]
Digital Past, a group effort by dozens of Chicago-area institutions, boasts one of the world's largest online colle… [read review or visit site]
Malcolm Roebuck's tribute to the ornate silk picture bookmarks and postcards ('Stevengraphs') produced by Thomas St… [read review or visit site]
Don't let this one get away from you. This 'unbelievable' collection, from the Wisconsin Historical Society, featur… [read review or visit site]
Great collection of American penny postcards from the early 1900s, organized by state and then county. Includes a n… [read review or visit site]
This beautiful site features a collection of tinted postcards, woodblock prints, and early maps of Tokyo. The image… [read review or visit site]
Lynne Appel's reference site contains useful information for postcard collectors such as such as a Postcard Collect… [read review or visit site]
Marty Weil's wide-ranging, in-depth blog on ephemera, including lots of great interviews with ephemera collectors. … [read review or visit site]
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Greensboro News Record
Layne and others like her see vintage postcards as windows to the past. “They are a record on our community,” said Benjamin Briggs, executive director of ...
San Jose Mercury News
The 128-page tome is peppered with illustrations from early magazines and scads of vintage postcards. These innocent images of Uncle Sam, Lady Liberty and ...
Examiner.com
July 4th Antiques auction features Victoriana, early postcards ...
Examiner.com
8000 TO 10.000 POSTCARD COLLECTION INC: BOOKS OF SANTAS, HOLIDAYS, MUCH MORE, MANY EARLY OUTSTANDING TOYS INC: JOHNNY WEST COVERED WAGON IN ORIGINAL ...
The Wealthy Dentist
Vintage posters are cutting-edge chic these days, and dentists can get in on the action too! The British Dental Association just re-released a series of ...
Packet Online
These included hand-painted vintage postcards and a Century Magazine account of a canal trip taken by a group of aristocratic New Yorkers. ...
Los Angeles Times
And, just in case anyone was slow to pick up on Smith's upbeat message, one T-shirt proclaimed it (in vintage-postcard style) in a single word: YES. ...
Baltimore Sun
Fox digitally colored some of the book's photographs, which gave them a vintage-postcard look while the black-and-white images of buildings and the ...
Boston Globe
The sun-splashed living room of Russell and Kaplan's house, perched on the northeastern edge of the San Francisco Bay, is filled with vintage postcards and ...
Irish Times
A vintage postcard view of the original terminal at Dublin airport and a muted study of the shadowy platforms at Limerick's Colbert Station are both ...
Foster's Daily Democrat
Kicking off the weekend events on Saturday, June 13, is Dairy Day, with free admission to the Willowbrook museum. Wagon rides will be provided at ...
