You will find vintage postcards for sale through many sources. Antique fairs, shops and centers. Collectors shops, specialist postcard fairs, land based auctioneers, dedicated dealers websites and of course the online auctions. With millions of vintage postcards for sale your collection can continue to grow as fast as your budget allows.
When I started out collecting vintage postcards in the early 1980’s you would find them everywhere. I remember the first time I looked at them closely and this was when I visited the local market. There was a guy selling the standard bric-a-brac assortment of cups, plates and vases and other interesting trinkets of interest.
In a small tin he had around 20-vintage postcards, all studio images of family members in their sunday best from the Edwardian era. It was commonplace for all families to have studio postcards published so they can send them to their relatives. Priced at 10-pence each I bought them all because I just thought they were a fascinating glance at the past.
The next time the market was open I was back again. The guy had a few more but there was one vintage postcard of a bridge on the Manchester Ship Canal. This was about 1-mile from my house. I didn’t even know local views existed on postcards? I thought postcards were for tourist areas.
From that day I was hooked and 40-years later I am still finding new postcards of that bridge and other places of local history interest. Back then there were so many opportunities to buy vintage postcards. Antique fairs were held every weekend and with a selection of postcard dealers at every fair the collection grew.
Over time I traveled up and down the country searching for new vintage postcards to add to my collection. The hobby soon got hold of me and I suppose I became a little obsessive. Vintage postcards were the last thing I thought about before going to sleep at night and the first thing I thought about in the morning.
I started to advertise in specialist postcard collecting magazines and books asking for vintage postcards of my local area. The collecting frenzy got so bad that even if I had a duplicate postcard 4-times I would buy it again if I saw it. Thankfully this madness settled and I started to trim my collection with the focus on quality, not quantity.
The advertisements I placed in the local paper always brought results and I acquired some lovely postcards that were handed down through generations. As the years passed the phone calls came to a trickle and so the advertising in the local press stopped.
You meet some very interesting people at the fairs. Very knowledgeable people who have written books on their specialist subject and they found vintage postcards an important medium to study from. Sadly, many of these people have now passed away. Their knowledge however lives on through the books they published. Many of their collections never see the light of day unfortunately because they were donated to local libraries and thus added to the vast array of material hidden away in their archives.
But the search for new additions continues and I am still doing the miles either by car or train. All good fun and the anticipation of not knowing what will turn up keeps the interest firmly alive. I would love to hear your vintage postcard collecting stories of how you started, what you collect and how you source your vintage postcards.
If you have a collection of vintage postcards for sale and would like a free valuation then please get in touch. Use the details on the Contact Us page and we will do our best to value them without any obligation to sell. We look forward to hearing from you.
