Vintage Postcards for Eveveryone--
A Guide

(for more links on postcards please see my ''About Me'' Page after reading this guide)

Collecting vintage postcards can be a fun and rewarding hobby for just about any budget...so long as you know how to do it.  Here are a few tips on how to get started in collecting vintage postcards.   

Pick a Card, Any Card

The first thing you will need to do is decide which types of vintage postcards you would like to collect.  They come in many shapes and sizes and an array of interesting and valuable categories. And just about all types of postcards have the same potential for increasing in value as long as you work on collecting as completely and thoroughly one type or subject in the any specific category.  Here are some of the most familiar and popular categories of vintage postcards you can collect.  Start by picking which general category you would like to start from. 

• Black and White Real Photo Postcards(RPL) are photos depicting a particular place, scene, person or method of transportation(car, train,boat etc.) printed on top of a postal card.  They can tell you a little bit about history, transport you back in time or just be a work of art 

(The real Photo Postcard above is of the San Fernando Mission in California. 
         It was taken during the early part of the 20th century before most of the earthquakes
        ravaged it destroying the original adobe architecture made by the Native Americans,
and is therefore a real piece of history)

• Colored Real photo postcards were made from photos taken in black and white, printed on a postal card, then using one of several intaglio(using a combination of chemicals, screens and manual labor) processes or painted by hand before being distributed to the public. Since these postcards were done at least in part by hand, are more or less one of a kind(even if in the tiniest variations) pieces of artwork and can be some of the most beautiful and valuable(depending on which process, and how many were made,etc.) best-kept secrets of antiquers.
  

(One of the two above images of the Petrified forest in Arizona is a beautifully hand colored vintage postcard.  The other is a modern color photo.  The hand colored postcard is so rich, it is hard to tell it apart from a modern photo.  Can you tell which is which?
Answer: the top is the postcard and the bottom is the photo.)

• Another category of vintage postcards, is the greeting card.  These were sent with wishes for a "Merry Christmas", "happy birthday", or other occasions written on them and were often ornately decorated with embossed designs, gold leafing, lace and intricate pictures. Halloween being the most popular of these for todays's collectors.  Some vintage halloween cards are known to sell for 100.00$ or more!
  Below is a good example of a turn of the century greeting post card with embossed flowers, gilt (golden)edging and the magnificent coloring characteristic of this time. With this particular one came a clear vellum envelope to protect the delicate graphics while still ensuring it to be delivered at the postcard rate.

• Humorous postcards are also a great category to collect from.  These consisted of mini cartoons or comics printed on one side with the regular space for adress and stamp on the back.  Printed in great quantities and varieties they were the first post cards made predominantly to collect, though they also could serve the purpose of today's "keep-in-touch" greeting card, as the one below indicates.

• Other categories of popular interest include Judaica,  African American Interest, Art cards, and postal cards advertising campaigns for World Wars I and II(particularly the 2nd world war post cards are popular today)

What Next?

Once you have decided what major category you want to collect from, the next thing to do is to decide what type or kind of card in that category to collect.  For example if you decide to collect real photo post cards what will they be of? Trains? Particular places?(your home town for example?) Movie stars?  The "type" or "subcategory"(the category within the category) you choose can be anything from cupids(and yes there are real photo postcards of children dressed as cupids just as their are greeting card cupids and vintage African American postcard cupids) to steamboats to Australia.  Once you have determined both category and type, or subcategory, you can start to build a thorough and complete collection of a narrow field, and what you pay a few dollars for individually can become worth much more as a group. And "hunting" out "your specialty" can be an inexpensive, easy hobby or an all consuming fascination.  Its up to you to set the pace.

On the Hunt

Where to find these rare and exciting treasures?  There are several ways to go on your treasure hunt, and you may find you prefer one or several of them.  One way that people have found their spoils for years(aside from inheriting Aunt Bertha's old trunk of vintage postcards or cleaning out your cousin's attic in exchange  for any vintage postcards you might find uneaten by bugs up there) has been at flea markets and antique stores.  Here you can usually find loads of vintage postcards, sometimes others entire collections, stashed together.  With this method you can browse through pages at a glance and actually pick up and hold the ones you are interested in, but  you will pay a larger price. Another way is through estate sales--pieces or entireties of peoples estates.  Oftentimes at these sales which are conducted in silent auction or regular auction form you will find a box of old papers containing ephemera(paper items) such as old bills, mail, etc. along with some great vintage postcards. This way you can see and touch what you want to buy and  pay a low price, but you do not often end up with more than a few of the postcards you actually want, and more than a few that you don't. eBay offers a veritable treasure trove too of antique postcards which can be searched for through a search engine, that brings up for you only the ones you are interested in, and on eBay you will pay a fraction of the price though you do not get to handle them before buying.  So there are a variety of methods to have fun at finding the postcards you love to collect.

 Trophies

Once you have started a collection there are numerous ways to house and display it, to keep it from dust and preserve it for the future.  But that will have to be saved for another guide.  Till then good luck and keep on collectin'!:)