Saturday, August 30, 2008

Real Photo Postcards


Real Photo Postcards, or RPPCs as they are called, are a fascinating subset of the deltiology hobby. They consist of images that are actual photographs, generally taken around the turn of the 20th century and into the 1930s and '40s. They are a slice of life preserved in amber, if you will, and can contain amazing historical information of places and people of times gone by.

The most popular images I have found are those of places that no longer exist; buildings that are no longer standing and which have a personal connection for the buyer. Images of children's camps from the '40s, country clubs from the '20s, historical houses from the 'Teens, all are immensely popular with collectors.

As well, topical cards are very collectible. Some people focus on a theme, such as "women on horseback", or "circus freaks", or specific brands of old motorcycles, for example. Some collectors are mad for images of early aviation; train wrecks and ship wrecks; specific makes of trucks and cars, and so on. The possibilities are endless, and everyone can find a niche that pleases them.

The date of many RPPCs can be identified by what is in their "Stamp Box", the spot on the back of the card where the stamp was placed in order to mail the card. Various manufacturers of the blanks used by photographers to make their cards had specific imprints that we can use to determine the age of a card. There are two websites I turn to again and again for help in this regard.

For a quick search of stamp boxes, I like this site: The Two Buds who have a short list of stamp boxes by markings and dates.

For a more exhaustive search and extensive listing, I always turn to the Playle's website, which has both a short list and a series of alphabetical links to actual photos of the various stamp boxes.

Between those two sites I can almost always date a card. One caveat however, later use of the "Kodak" papers means that an old image can be newly reprinted, which rather negates the dating process. So beware of the newer labels when searching for vintage cards, and be sure to check the stamp box before purchasing.

The true beauty of a real photo postcard is that it is often one of a kind. These are not mass-produced and printed cards, they're generally the only copies of a particular image. And photos that are 100+ years old are fragile and don't store well, which means they are even more collectible. They're more expensive than some other types of cards, but well worth the investment, especially if the subject is one near and dear to your heart.

Monday, August 25, 2008

How it all started


My adventures into postcard collecting and dealing started with my mom, of course. She was a dedicated lover of ephemera, and passed that love onto me. I can remember (and still have) her sending me vintage postcards when I was just a young girl, away at camp. She'd put a blank sticker over the back if it had already been used (which makes me cringe now), and write a note and just send it along through the mail again with a new stamp.

Mom had an eye for beauty. She could pick out the one good card from a huge boxful of junk. She had an unerring instinct for what was collectible, from shells at the beach, to antiques, to postcards. She just knew somehow, when something was right. It's a skill you can learn, up to a point, but there's also a quality to it that must be inherent, in the genes, and my mom had it.

I began buying and selling postcards about ten years ago. It all started with a trip mom and I made to an antique mall near the small town where she grew up. They had hundreds of dealers, and that day mom and her sister and I spent the entire day there, with a short break for lunch, then back at it. We rooted through the various dealers stalls, looking for the special cards that she liked to collect, and in the process I came to realize that I liked this hobby too, and wanted to do more with it. At that time eBay was relatively new, and I was new to it. I had a small business there selling collectibles like pottery and so on, three-D stuff if you will. After that day at the antique mall with mom and my aunt, I went home with a big pile of postcards to see how they'd do on eBay. They did very well, and I was hooked!

I sold postcards on eBay for about three years, making quite a fair job of it for a part-time seller and part-time mom. I tapered off the year we bought four horses and some goats, it just wasn't possible to keep up with all that and milk goats at the same time. But I always kept my love of Deltiology, and often mom and I would talk on the phone about her postcard hunting trips and whenever I went home we'd pore over her albums with glee. It was a love we shared, and something that we could always talk about for hours on end.

Mom died last year, and left behind thousands of cards. My dad has no interest in them, and I don't have the space to house her huge collection. I've gone through much of it (some is still back at home waiting to be poked through), and have started listing the cards on eBay for my father. It's a bittersweet process. At one point mom and I had talked about trying to contact a large greeting card company and licensing her images to them, but between the two of us we never quite got around to it. But she had a name all picked out, and it's the one I'm using now: KatyDid, after a book that was a childhood favorite of hers, "What Katy-Did."

So now I have a second shop on eBay (still have the other one for my own cards), sending mom's cards back out into the world for others to collect and treasure. It's hard for me to let go, I am not quite the pack rat my mom was, but I believe in saving history when I can. I've pulled out some of the best of each of her albums, and perhaps may publish a small book of her collection. As I work with her cards every day I can sometimes hear her voice telling me to look that publisher up, or check that artist, guiding me along as I go down this road. I know it's not the business we had envisioned, but I hope in some small way that the customers I work with feel the integrity I strive for, and the love that mom and I both put into the cards we're selling. Any other way of doing things just wouldn't be true to either of us.