Collectors of Vintage Postcards

I myself discovered vintage postcards while in college in Rhode Island in the 1970’s, while rummaging through a used bookstore. The cards were in a shoe box in a dark corner. And, though I had no knowledge of or interest in postcards per se, I was very interested in children’s book illustration, my career aspiration at the time. Postcards of such illustrations delighted me. At 25-cents each, they were my first postcard acquisitions. Soon I was adding cards of Maine lobsters and Newport mansions, fond associations with my college years in the years to come.

Even after joining the Metropolitan Postcard Collectors Club in NYC, where I relocated after college, I would not call myself a collector. I just did it for fun, after all. Didn't organize them or anything. But definitely and consistently was amassing cards. So why the hesitation to identify as a collector?

Perhaps I was concerned that if dealers considered me a collector they’d entice me with pricier cards which I'd be unable to resist. There is, after all, a compulsive aspect to the hobby. (More on this in a future article.) Also, I feared, if I answered yes to the dealers' persistent question “Are you a collector?” they would assume an expertise on my part that I couldn’t live up to.

Now I freely and proudly admit to being a collector, and not simply a hoarder of postcards. The difference has nothing to do with how many years one’s been involved, nor how many cards one owns, nor whether they're stored in shoe boxes or notebooks or fine oak cabinets. The difference is: A collector is discriminating. He/she brings discerning and opinionated criteria to each acquisition. And, perhaps most importantly, a collector has the overall goal of building an archive or multiple archives, based on his/her distinctive criteria.

There are probably as many ways and reasons to collect postcards as there are collectors of them, and none is more correct than another. Some choose a topic rife with personal nostalgia or meaning, such as a hometown, a breed of dog, or advertising from childhood years. Others with more extensive knowledge of postcard history may collect one publisher or artist or photographer, or even deltiology - postcards about postcards and postal history. Some select solely for visual aesthetics or printing techniques. Some are attracted to scarcity, relying on one or more dealers to funnel rarities their way. Others are drawn to the most common and can be found clustered around 25-cent boxes at postcard shows. Even here treasures can be found, for value is often in the eye - and collection - of the beholder.

What is common to all collectors, of postcards or otherwise, is the thrill of the search, the find, the acquisition; and ultimately, the building and shaping of a unique collection.

This section of the Metropolitan Postcard Club website will present various postcard collectors via interviews and samples from their collections. There will also be short essays on various aspects of postcard collecting, from the psychological to the practical, and on novel ways of looking at and understanding postcards, hopefully bringing insights to even the most seasoned collector.