Just one postcard.

[batcap]

I was fortunate to get a 20 minute crash course on postcard collecting a few weeks ago when I found a guy going thru a bunch of old postcards a friend (sidewalk huckster of jewelry and vintage items) ran across.
He gave me a quick lesson on pre-1907 undivided back cards, real photo postcards, and a few basic rules such as "Writing on the Front is a NO-NO", and "Condition is everything - a missing corner or a tear will more than halve a card's value." and "Old isn't good enough, it needs an interest factor to be valuable."
So I rooted around in my friends cards and bought a few - then looked them up on ebay to find that the lesson didn't sink in very well. But without this hint about postcards I wouldn't have even looked at a batch I found at a yard sale the very next week. It's not in my nature to toss $100 on a speculation, but I had a great auction on ebay the week before, and had all this new knowledge. I laid down $100 (not even negotiating) on the shoebox full of cards - maybe 800 or so. This is the first auction of one of those 800 cards - mind that this is not typical of the box - I cherry picked this one, ( but I could have bought it by itself for $1).
Alligator Border Langsdorf S657 Greetings from the Sunny South, cotton pickers. | eBay
Whoops, it just went up another $20 while I was writing this post!

 

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[baylorhall]

Wow! You picked a great one!

 

[baylorhall]

So was he saying that a card that has been postmarked is not as valuable?

 

[batcap]

So was he saying that a card that has been postmarked is not as valuable?

No, there's the picture side and the address side. a long time ago you could only write the address on the back, no message. So, people wrote in the margins of the picture side, or wrote right on the picture. That's bad. Postmarks and addresses on the reverse don't matter.

 

[SEANO]

NICE!!!

After seeing crazy prices at auction, I recently picked-up some very early Victorian type "Wedding Post Cards" in great condition ($5). I am working on a presentation strategy for local auction sale at this point, but may Feebay.

 

[diggummup]

Alligator borders always do well. I mentioned that here- http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/whats-worth/277993-old-post-cards.html and here- http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/my-collections/129086-postal-cards.html Right now old China postcards are really hot as well as the old baseball, nudes (full frontal the most desired), pre-war real photo military foreign and domestic. PC's are always on my list of things to look for. Though I have only sold one or two, I have many.

 

[Charmin]

Batcap---I gotta thank you for this post.....I looked through some old postcards we had at my sister's antique shop and made $35 on ebay last night within 30 minutes of listing one. Funny thing is, we had the postcards for sale at the shop for $2 each.
So, again, thank you for bringing this to my attention! Appreciate it!!!

 

[burgessbogy]

Hmm. I inherited a ton of old postcards. This has given me a reason to dig out that old box!

 

[StoneWhisper]

Can you say 15,000 reasons to search through old post cards?.. yep and all of them simply thrown away.. most from the 1900's and most historical landmarks. In all the whole lot was valued at just over $5,000 but again this was in 2001..