ANTIQUES and COLLECTIBLES ARTICLES INDEX

COLORADO ANTIQUE DEALERS DIRECTORY

Postcards: an enjoyable and inexpensive collectible

by Nancy Russell

Collecting antiques can be a rewarding hobby, especially because the objects one buys are already valuable based on their age alone. Unlike folks who collect new, manufactured collectibles, antiques collectors don’t have to wait for years, hoping their items will become more valuable.

But many people who would love to collect stuff have said to me, “I don’t really have enough space for collecting,” or “I can’t afford to collect antiques”.

What if there were an affordable and small antique you could collect? An item that is easy to find in antiques shops and at auction? An antique that is beautiful and educational at the same time? Well, I recommend that you explore the possibility of collecting antique picture postcards.

Postcards were first produced in Austria in 1869, and the craze reached the United States in the early 1900s. By 1906, Americans were buying postcards at the rate of more than 700 million a year.

Apparently, most of these cards were saved and enjoyed by the purchaser. It wasn’t until the U.S. government allowed postcards to be mailed for a penny stamp that Americans started buying and mailing the cards as an inexpensive means of communication with family and friends.

The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1892 saw the birth of the modern picture postcard.

A Chicago entrepreneur named Charles Goldsmith persuaded the U.S. government to license him to print and sell illustrated souvenir cards. Up until that time, only the government could print and sell a card to be mailed for a penny.

Goldsmith sold sets of 10 lithographs, printed on government postals, picturing buildings and dignitaries associated with the exposition. A number of unofficial Columbian Exposition cards were printed, too. Some of them are on government postals and some on privately printed cards. If you have some of these in your attic, congratulations! Any of these Columbian Exposition cards are rare and valuable.

Postcard mania lasted until the beginning of World War I, when the hobby took a nosedive. The arrival of the newfangled greeting card to the American market was probably more of a factor than the war, however.

In 1913, Americans bought 968 million cards, but in 1914 this number was greatly reduced. The hobby revived again in the 1960s. Collectors began to perceive that old postcards were beautiful as well as educational. Pictures depicting the machines, streets, buildings, dignitaries and humor of a bygone age were prized.

Dig through Grandma’s attic and find her collection of postcards. This will lead to a new appreciation of times past. Read the messages, notice the beautiful handwriting and admire the elaborate stamps.

I hope this will lead to family discussions and stories. If no postcards are found in your family, start your own collection now. There are a number of books on postcard collecting in the public library. One I recommend is “The Postcard Century: 2,000 Cards and Their Messages” by Tom Phillips.

There are very few antiques you can collect these days that cost only a dollar or two, give you a written glimpse into days gone by and take up a minimal amount of space for storage or display. Postcards are the ideal way to dive into collecting.

Copyright Nancy Russell

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