Have You
Inherited a Postcard Collection?
By
Hy Mariampolski
You're very lucky to have inherited
a shoebox of postcards and it's only natural to wonder what they
might be worth. However, this question is best answered with another
question: What are your intentions? Are you seeking to keep them or
sell them? Congratulations if you're intending to keep them. There's
nothing more valuable than a family archive based on an accumulation
of antique postcards. Within this hoard, you may find the first
love-letter sent by your great-grandfather to your great-grandmother
or mementoes kept after a honeymoon voyage or images of your street
before it was paved. Regardless of the image on the other side, the
value of these items is "priceless."
* * * * *
If you're keeping these with the intention of starting a collection
of your own...Welcome to our glorious fraternity. Postcard
collecting is an extraordinarily satisfying hobby, especially if you
have an interest in art, history, architecture or a myriad of other
topics.
* * * * *
Okay, you're really interested in selling the postcards, not keeping
any or most of them. Here you have to become aware, first, of the
distinction between the buying, or wholesale, price and the selling,
or retail, price. Unlike gold, pork bellies, oil and other
commodities for which there are well established markets whose
gyrations are thoroughly charted and available as public
information, the value of postcards is much less stable and is
created primarily by individual transactions between buyers and
sellers. It's an unregulated market. Some items are scarcer and more
in-demand than others and this will have an impact on value. Often,
the value of a card is determined by where it is being traded. For
example, the price you pay for a real photo of a historic California
Mission will be greater in California than it would be on the East
Coast because that's where you would expect more collectors, hence
more demand for this topic. This is generally true for all cards
depicting local scenes.
* * * * *
Let's not go any further into discussions of Adam Smith or
economics. Let's just say that what you will be offered by a dealer
will be anywhere from 10% - 50% of what they believe the card will
sell for at retail. The percentage you will be offered will be
higher when the card is more valuable because their risk is lower
when they feel they can turn the card around quickly. Before
discussing postcards with dealers, get to know several of them and
find out about their specialties. See what their selling prices are
for cards similar to your own and calculate your expectations as a
fraction of those prices.
* * * * *
At retail, collectible postcards normally sell for anywhere from 25¢
to $1000 or more. That's a pretty wide range. It also means that,
depending on their value, your hoard of 300-400 cards could possibly
earn you a nice lunch or a new house. Let me warn you that the
overwhelming likelihood is in the direction of lunch. Most groups of
300-400 cards on ebay close at about $50 - $100, unless there's
something special within the group. But, then again, every once in a
while lightning strikes.
* * * * *
That brings us to another distinction – between an accumulation and
a collection. Most of those shoeboxes in the backs of closets
represent an accumulation - cards that randomly arrived in the
owners possession and were just not discarded. There might be a few
valuable cards among these but most of the time, unless they were
all accumulated in the years before World War I, they are likely to
be cards with low market value. On the other hand, cards that were
avidly collected were gathered according to one or several themes or
topics. In this case, the original collector went out and sought or
traded for specific kinds of postcards. Usually, the collector took
steps to preserve his or her collection by placing them in albums or
protective coverings. Let's say that if your original collector
sought out cards about the sinking of the Titanic, or pre-Holocaust
European synagogues or the work of a favored artist associated with
the Art Nouveaux movement like Mela Koehler and A. Mucha, you're
possibly looking at a house, or at least a nice new car. There are
quite a few additional highly collectible, in-demand topics that
could represent considerable potential value in your shoebox: real
photo advertisements, baseball players and stadiums, Halloween,
women's suffrage, early fairs and expositions and many more.
* * * * *
Please remember that age counts – usually, the earlier the better –
and so does condition. Many accumulations sat in people's parlors
and were used for entertainment in those days before TV and
computers. The value of many nice cards is compromised by having
folds or torn corners. (Don't get me started about those Jackie
Robinson and Mickey Mantle baseball cards that disintegrated in my
back pocket when I was a kid.)
* * * * *
Here are some resources for finding
out what the "going" price is for many postcards: Many dealers and
collectors look at ebay selling prices – not opening bids or asking
prices – as a guide. Others find the catalogues with selling prices
– again, not the asking prices – published by Lyn Knight Auctions to
be very useful. Another good resource is the series of catalogues by
J.L. Mashburn. Please remember that this is not a "hard" market but
a very soft one with very dramatic shifts in values and prices.
Consequently, any price guide gets dated very quickly.
* * * * *
Whatever your choice, have a great
time and Happy Postcarding.
* * * * *
Last updated:
02/14/2017 07:11:47 PM -0500
Jack Daley, Webmaster
webmaster 
postcard.org
