It’s incredibly sad to think that so many old postcard albums have simply been thrown away and rest in landfill or have been recycled into some modern day paper product. Who knows what value was in that album? Maybe not very much on paper but when you consider just one postcard can be very valuable, it does make you wonder. But the facts are that most people do not know the value of postcards and that is not their fault. If you gave me an album of old stamps and told me to pick out the one which holds the most value I would have no clue. Postcards are the same.
Rule No1 is do not throw them away because you do not know the value of them. You can do your own homework on value by just checking out the online auction websites. Spend some time on there and you may start to see a pattern of what sells and what doesn’t. You also have the bonus of knowing the hammer price. But this is only a rough generalisation. You need a lot of experience in the postcard collecting World to start being a valuer.
You have to consider so many things when you value an album or collection. Condition is critical along with age and scarcity. I see people trying to sell modern day postcards from popular holiday resorts for silly money online? They never sell, but the buyer just re-lists them in hope that one day some unsuspecting individual is going to buy them. This would be a very rare occurrence indeed.
You come across these entrepreneurs at auctions up and down the country. Buying boxes of postcards that contain thousands of postcards thinking they are going to make a killing online. They soon realise that there is much more to buying and selling postcards and knowledge and experience are king!
If you have postcards to sell then you have a number of options available.
- You can take some photographs of them and send them to us via WhatsApp. If. you have an album just take one image per page and this will give us a good idea of what you have. If we need a shot of the backs we will let you know but we can value them from this. You then have a choice of selling them, keeping them or getting another opinion. You will get paid as soon as we receive the postcards.
- You can offer them to an auctioneer who will value them for you. You will have to post them to the auction house and this will incur some expense. But you know it’s in the auctioneers interest to get the best price for your postcards. Don’t forget to consider the seller commission plus VAT on the hammer price. You may have to wait many weeks and sometimes months before you get paid depending when the auction is.
- If you have a dedicated postcard fair near you then take them along. You can offer them to various dealers so you can get an average idea of value. You will get paid instantly but just remember the dealer has to make money and can only offer a percentage of the real value.
- You will always get a good price from a collector. They do not have to make a margin and they are looking for new additions for their collection. Postcard duplicates are not a problem and they can always move them on or swap them with fellow postcard collectors. Finding these collectors is not easy unless you advertise them for sale.
- You can take a gamble and sell them with an online auction website. You can use a starting price so they don’t sell for nothing but just be aware of fees and postage overheads when selling.
As you can see, I have shown you many options on how you can sell your postcards. If you’re not sure just contact us and we will be glad to help. We give free valuations so you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
