If you buy and sell postcards from a shop, on the internet or at a postcard fair then there has been more than one occasion when you have been approached by a non-collector who has had a postcard collection left to them by their grandfather.  They know the collection is old due to the postmark though old to a twenty-year-old could be the 1950s.

The question they ask appears to be universal, “How much is it worth?”  The complement to you is that without seeing the collection and based on the postmark date and a vague description that there are thousands of them and they are all of Margate you can provide an accurate appraisal of the postcards value.

When you explain that it depends on condition, date, view and the type of postcard, RP or printed etc you can see the shutters come down and the vague look that says I only wanted to know what they are worth.

It is even worse when the question is received by email, you have no idea where the seller is located, no images are made available, you have no idea of condition and they have not bothered to count the cards so the question is what are they worth and when can you come and see them.  I feel certain that most of us are so into postcard collecting that we will travel several hundred or even thousands of miles to view half a dozen postcards that would struggle to fetch 99p on eBay individually or as a bulk sale.

Several months ago, I was approached by a young woman whose grandfather had left his substantial postcard collection.  She explained that they were in boxes, the cards in protective sleeves and there were about 10,000.  She went on to describe the views and condition and the type of card, given the number of postcards and the brief details I said that without view the cards I could only estimate that the cards had a value between £350 and several thousand pounds.  As I was unable to travel to where the postcards were located I suggested several local dealers, an auction house and even eBay though made the point that if she placed them on eBay she should start with an opening bid of about £3,000 to £3,500.  I noted several days later that the postcards were listed on eBay for £350 and sold for that price.

I knew the dealer who won the bid and out of curiosity asked what the collection was like, he confirmed that they were a collection of printed and RP postcards and in total there were about 30,000 postcards.  “Well he would say that wouldn’t he.”

I felt a little sorry for the girl and her departed grandfather as he probably thought he was giving her something of value and a start in life.

I have tried to figure out how you can give an honest online appraisal and suggest the seller sends the postcards or a good selection with return postage, to date that has not happened, as soon as money is mentioned they have no further interest in discovering the postcard collections worth and would rather give them away.

Whilst tidying up this website I noticed a Google advertisement for a new website, valuemystuff.com.  I visited the website and it appears it is managed by a group of appraisers from several London Auction Houses though does not mention which.  The Google advertisement specifically covers postcard valuations though the website covers valuations for all antiques and collectables.  The fee for each item is £3.99, given that the value of an average postcard is substantially less than £3.99 and a small collection may consist of less than a thousand postcards a fee of nearly £4,000 appears a little excessive.  If the collection is in the region of 10,000 postcards that is over £40K for the valuation.  Either valuemystuff.com are going to become rich very quickly or go broke waiting for clients.

The dealer (a friend) had sorted me some London cards but I wanted to look through his stock for the unusual. Two Russian/German WWI Field Postcards caught my eye, sent by a sailor from Germany to Kent in 1915 I bought them as I thought researching them would be a challenge. I was surprised the Russian image on them was so universal, people with eggs and pussy willow meant they were Easter cards. But how come they were sent by a Leading Seaman in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve? Googling the heading on the card "Kriegsgefangen" told me he was a prisoner of war and the red rubber stamp "Gepruft" meant "censored".

"Doberitz" in the censor stamp and written on the card under "Kriegsgefangenlager"(prison camp) said it all. At least it did in my old Gazetteer, published in the early 1930's when WWI was a recent memory. It told me that it was a village of Prussia near to Potsdam and Berlin, it had a large barracks and parade ground and became a prisoner of war camp in WWI. Why the RNVR? Well as the navy were not doing much it was decided that a Royal Naval Division be formed to help Prince Albert of Belgium defend Antwerp. Unfortunately for various reasons, (two divisions were raw recruits, fleeing refugees got in the way), some 1600 men were captured or surrendered. Doberitz camp housed many of these prisoners and Russians as well for whom these cards were produced, they may have even printed them, themselves, the British printed a magazine whilst they were imprisoned  The British and Russians mixed freely until the British complained of the Russian's lice and fleas, standards in their army were lower than ours!

So a bit of "Googling" and two books soon solved the mystery!

Written by David Hill

What sells fast on eBay is a question many eBay sellers must ask themselves as they view piles of stock that never seems to diminish in size.  It would be nice to have an insight so that we could plan what we should buy next and how quickly will it sell.  You could try cars there is a car sold every 2 minutes, or what about a CD, there is one sold every 9 seconds, mobile phones there popular and we all seem to change them at least once a year but at 21 seconds they are a little on the slow side.

There are those items we all think should sell quickly and profitably such as computers, sportswear, golf clubs and toys but these are very slow at one sold every two minutes.  The edge could be men’s clothing an item sold every 9 seconds; it must be women’s clothing with an item sold every 5 seconds.  That comes as no surprise though what about selling something every three seconds, an item that you thought only the Queen and Lady Thatcher carry, and she sold hers for £130,000, yes, it is handbags one every three seconds.

There are of course the big-ticket profitable items, a Gulf Stream Jet sold on eBay for $4.9 million, the most expensive item sold on eBay.  How about a Nuclear Bunker at £14,000, an American Missile Base at $750,000 or even a town called Albert in Texas for a mere $3.5 million.

Knowing what sells and how quickly and at the best prices gives you loads of ideas, does anyone have a spare Concorde they want selling, or how about Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, London or Tower Bridge.  Guess not, has all been done before.

With over 17 million listings and unique visitors a month, eBay can brag that it is the largest online marketplace in the UK; they also estimate that over 147,000 people earn a primary or secondary income selling on eBay.  With many of the traditional markets struggling, eBay has also become a secondary market for many shops and small businesses that would normally trade from shop and warehouse premises.  There are several benefits from selling on eBay, access to a larger customer base, the ability to dispose of aging and slow stock quickly and liquidate stock for cash.

The British public has also become wise to out of season trading purchasing Christmas, Easter and Birthday presents during the course of the year.  Figures released by eBay show the items like Artificial Christmas Trees, Decorations, Stocking and Cards can be purchased for as little as 99p are up on the year by nearly 200%.  This may not be an indication that the economic crisis is over but a sign that shoppers know by shopping early they can find a 99p bargain that will increase in price as the number of shopping days between now, and Christmas diminishes the demand, and prices increase. 

eBay spokesperson, Julia Hutton-Potts, adds, “We’ve been surprised to see so much Christmas shopping happening on the site so early in the year.  The summer is still in full swing and already we’re looking forward to Christmas.  eBay is a great barometer of shopping trends and has shown us that this year we’re planning ahead for Christmas and snapping up some fantastic out-of-season bargains."

We are lucky that there has been so much archival information stored about this company though there are disappointments that in 1931, Valentines began disposing of obsolete images and it is estimated that over one million were destroyed.  Many of the overseas images were lost to Valentine’s when they disposed of their overseas business to local management. 

Much of what is now archived material, including early photographs, will be made available on the internet once a digitalisation programme has been completed, and subject to available software, will be accessible online.

Collectable Postcard Magazine could research further what there is to know about Valentines but that would really be a waste of time considering the exceptional information provided by Archives Hub so rather than waste our and your time in duplicating what is already an informative web page we have placed this link so that you can see for yourself the information that is available and the research facilities that are available through the National Archives and the University of St. Andrews.

If you happen to be travelling west along the A259 and have just passed through Hastings and the sea is on your left and you are about to pass buildings on your left and the road bears left under a railway bridge and on your right is a large DIY store and whilst you are travelling down this road you happen to be an avid postcard collector keep an eye open because coming up on your right, just past the pothole that your nearside front bumped through, is a 1927 Italianate factory built by Fred Judge, the founder of Judge’s Postcards.

Fred Judge, born in Wakefield, Yorkshire, in 1872, started out in life as an engineer with an interest in photography.  On a visit to Sussex in 1902, Fred, made the decision to give up engineering and take up photography as a profession.  Convincing his brother, Thomas, to join him, they purchased an established Hastings photography business at 21a Wellington Place and named it Judge’s Photo Store.  At that time, neither Fred nor Thomas Judge could have realised the impact they would have on the postcard publishing industry that would last for over 100 years.

Perhaps it was Fred Judge’s training as an engineer that  made him a perfectionist, how Thomas Judge coped with that we do not know but we do know that the early photographs published by Judge’s were a local attraction.  It was not unusual for locals to stand outside the shop in preparation for the next batch of developed photographs to be exhibited.

In 1902, postcard publishing was not a new invention, postcards with images, had been around for several years and there were literally thousands of photographer publishers, from the small one-man-bands like Judges to the large and established publishers including the renowned Louis Levy.  Was it the photography, the printing or the entrepreneurial skills of the Judge Brothers that saw Judge’s out last all of the established publishers by at least forty years.

When the Judge Brothers set up their small Hastings business, they were entering a world dominated by the Germans.  The printing techniques the German publishers used were recognised throughout the world as the best.  The majority of British publishers had their postcards printed in German, as did the Americans.  There are few British postcards published before WWI that do not bear the legend, “Printed in Saxony”, or “Berlin” and occasionally, “Germany”. 

Much of what was printed in Britain at that time was of poor quality, perhaps the brothers realised that they would have to produce something with a difference to compete with the Germans and the likes of Louis Levy, and they did. 

Fred Judge’s photography was of such a high standard that it outshone the others, as can be judged by the 1904 postcard “Lightening” and the 1906 postcard “Glory”.  We have to remember that these images were not taken with point and shoot cameras, they were glass plates and return to the darkroom and hope photography.  Not the luxury of digital imagery where you know the end result before you develop.

The First World War may have had a hand in establishing Judge’s success, we will never know how much it helped though we do know that the Judge brothers went on to establish further premises in the West Country, London and the Lake District.  Fred’s photographs won over 100 medals at exhibitions of his work in London, New York, Washington and Tokyo. 

In 1927, due to the rapidly expanding business requiring further space Judge’s moved to the new Italianate building where they are located to day on the A259 on the outskirts of Hastings, not too far from where the business was originally established.

In 1950, aged 78, Fred Judge died, his ashes scattered on the hills overlooking Hastings Old Town.  Since Fred and his brother Thomas’s day the company Judge’s has moved on and diversified, establishing new printing techniques and products though it still remains a family concern with a descendent of Fred Judge at the helm.  Perhaps Fred now looks over Hastings with his competitors beside him wondering how the one-man-band called Judge’s Photo Store outlasted them all.

There appears to be some confusion when Edgar Longstaffe was born and when he died, dates vary by ten years though all appear to agree that he was born in Derbyshire, the son of a doctor, married, moved to Newport, Essex, where he died and was buried alongside his wife.

Longstaffe was a prolific painter, exhibiting at the Royal Academy, The Royal Hibernian Academy and elsewhere during the latter part of the 1800s.  Though it is uncertain how many paintings Longstaffe produced, the estimated figure is in the hundreds in both watercolour and oils. You can still find Langstaffe’s paintings at the Royal Academy; other works still appear at auction and achieve good prices.

His views, many of the Highlands of Scotland, remain popular and still in print.  We have searched our collection of cooper/steel engraved prints in the hope we had a portrait of Longstaffe, or one of his paintings we could show here but regrettably, we do not.

Though uncertain of the exact dates Longstaffe was on the staff of the art and postcard publishers, Raphael Tuck; he produced watercolour sketches and drawings used in the production of prints and art postcards, many of which can still be found today at Postcard Fairs and eBay.

Edgar Longstaffe signed most of his works E L.  We have spoken with the Editor of our sister publication, Arts Magazine, and they have agreed to keep us updated and as we receive further information, we will update this article.

Born in Norfolk England in 1836 and in 1839 he and his parents emigrated to the USA, they lived in Albany, New York State.  Whilst at school the young George Boughton made dozens of pen and ink sketches on scraps of paper, these he gave to his friends who thought that they were so good they scratched the sketches onto wood to make a more permanent record.

Though it was never mentioned what these sketches were scratched onto George was made an example of several times a day causing his some physical discomfort.  Between the age of leaving school and nineteen George was going fishing and called in at the shop to buy hooks and there he saw oil pains, he forgot the hooks and became hooked on oil paintings selling his first at the age of nineteen.

With the money from selling his oil painting he made his way to New York City, spent a short time in New York before travelling to France where he studied art and in 1862 moved to England.  He held a number of exhibitions including the Royal Academy.  Though much of his works were landscapes he enjoyed painting people and was recognised for his Puritans and French peasants.

Though English by birth and brought up in the USA he was torn between the two countries and felt his place and art were in England. In 1879 he was elected an A.R.A, in 1896 an R.A. and a member of the National Academy of Design in 1871.

Though George Boughton died in 1905 and printing pictures on postcards was not permitted until 1895 many of George Boughton’s paintings appeared on postcards and today attract prices around £6.00.

There are many postcard dealers off and on-line, they range from one-man bands working part-time covering fairs and stalls at shows and listing several hundred cards on the internet.  There are semi-professional dealers who have a website, an eBay shop and may list a few thousand postcards.  Then there are the professional postcard dealers who carry a stock of hundreds of thousands of postcards, a physical shop, internet shop and an eBay shop selling thousands of postcards a year.

Ansichtskarten is a professional postcard dealer based in Berlin, the capital of Germany.  This firm has a staff of about nine, four of the staff are there to assist customers from around the world with enquiries, ordering and shipping.  I spoke with Marco Hebenstreit, responsible for the website, he tells me they have over 20,000 internet customers from all corners of the world, a stock of nearly 300,000 postcards and can communicate in six languages.  I asked Marco if he could show me their best postcard, he could not for no other reason than they sold so quickly that it was impossible to select just one postcard and say it was there best.  I received the same response when I asked what where the most popular though with typical German efficiency Marco could give me the average price of the postcards they sold and that was a respectable  5.15 Euros.

The shop is modern fronted with all the walls given over to row upon row of shelves stacked with postcard storage boxes, you get an impression of professionalism and efficiency  and a love of the product.

Ansichtskarten began life as a small dealer in antiques and moved into the postcard market in 1995 and feel that it was a positive move.   They have a large stock of German postcards and a good selection of postcards from around the world.  They send out a regular newsletter in six languages and have an area on their website were collectors can meet and talk about their love of postcards.

On visiting the website, to begin with, I found the site a little daunting until I realised you could change the colour, the site is easy to navigate in the language of your choice, the layout is simple and easy to use and you are not assaulted with promotions and advertising.  The services provided are easy to understand and though the English may be a little archaic it is easy to understand once your ear and eye have become attuned and as I speak no other language I cannot say how easy it is to under stand the other languages; that is not a criticism of the site or the business. This is a postcard site well worth the visit.

When I consider that I began selling postcards at the same time as Ansichtskarten and through boredom and overwork gave up about four years ago, you realise the dedication it has taken to achieve the level of service provided by this business.

On the 1st of October 2009, several important changes are taking place to the Companies Act including the long outdated need for a Company Secretary.  It may be advisable to retain the services of a firm offering the services of a Company Secretary if you find the paperwork daunting and are of a forgetful nature as the fines for late filing can get expensive.

You should keep a eye on your filing dates as Companies House have reduced filing time by one month, it is difficult to understand why it is possible they want to increase their income by issuing more fines.

The revolutionary change to the Companies Act is the age of directors, now reduced from 18 to 16 years of age, a strange change since you need to be 18 to sign a contract or buy property.  Directors can now protect their home addresses by using a service address.

Annual General Meetings have also been sent to the bin, as has the unanimous vote to pass resolutions or get a Court Order to make capital reductions, this can now be achieved by a solvency statement.

Starting a new company will become easier though there are changes to the Memorandum and Articles of Association, these new changes do not only affect new companies but also established.  You can find out more from the Companies House website, you might also want to check with your accountant.

There comes a point in the collector’s life where he either wants to rationalise his collection due to size, to dispose of doubles, has completed one collection to start another or attends auctions and buys several hundred postcards for one rarity, removes the one postcard returning the remainder to auction or they are swapped or sold at local fairs or eBay.

Selling or swapping the odd postcard through eBay, or many of the other auction and classified postcard websites, does not make you a dealer, though selling several hundred postcards a year through fairs, online and offline auctions will, even though you may not make a profit or become a millionaire, certainly places you in the dealer category.

There are a number of benefits in collecting and dealing in postcards, you have first choice of postcards for your own collection, you can swap the better postcards for those in your collection that are not top quality, you buy in postcards at trade price.

Though there are many benefits there are also drawbacks. Dependent on the country you live you may have to register as a business and obtain a licence, provide proof that you are qualified to deal and provide services like valuations.  In the English county of Kent you need to register as a dealer in second-hand goods, you are required to maintain a register of businesses or individuals from whom you made purchases of £50.00 or over and to whom you sold items with a value of £50 or over.

The register of sales and purchases is detailed and you are required to collect information many buyers do not wish to provide.  You may also be required, for your own protection, to take the thumbprint of a seller.  The register must be made available to the Police and Trading Standards Officers.

If your business is full or part time you are required to inform the Inland Revenue and maintain proper records.  You do not need an accountant as the tax man will help you work out tax due.  However, avoiding the services of an accountant could be a false economy as you may fail to claim all the relevant benefits so an accountant may be worth his weight in fees.

If you work from retail premises you will require insurance to cover theft, accidental damage, fire, flooding etc.  You will also require public liability insurance.  Most insurance companies have very little idea of what a collectable or antique is so will have a blanket cover that includes things you will never have on the shop premises.  If you carry around £25,000 worth of stock you will have to alarms and have special locks fitted.  If you have a fire or flood and all your stock is lost the insurance company may limit their liability to no more than £250 per item and £1,500 in total with an annual premium of around £500.

Take on a worker full or part time and you will require further insurance and instigate Health and Safety procedures, fire procedures and equipment, deduct income tax and national insurance contributions as well as maintain deduction records.  If your worker is taken sick you will also have to work out SSP payments etc.  Though employing a helper may appear to be more work than it is worth you might be able to obtain several part time workers with the government paying their wages.

You also have to consider registering for Value Added Tax (VAT), though in the UK postcards do not attract VAT at point of sale, you can claim back all the VAT you pay on supplies so there is a small benefit and more forms to fill.  You do not need to register for VAT until your turnover reaches a given level within a quarter. 

If you own the premises you trade from so much the better you only have to worry about Business Property Tax another pain in the but.  If you intend to rent your trading premises on a licence or a lease get professional help.  Make sure you know what you are responsible for and what are the landlord’s responsibilities.  I have seen a number of businesses that were making reasonable profits throw it all away because they never had the licence or lease checked before signing.  Get the premises surveyed by a professional surveyor and ask him for a schedule of dilapidations before signing the agreement and have it agreed with the landlord and attached to the agreement.

Dependant on the type of property and licence agreement the cost of a professional survey may save you several thousand when you vacate.  A friend signed a lease for 25 years when he first went into business, the business traded successfully for ten years, my friend found larger more suitable premises and purchased the freehold and on giving the landlord notice to quit discovered he was still liable for the remaining 15 years rent.  He found a tenant acceptable to the landlord and assigned the remaining 15 years on the lease to be given a bill for £25,000 to have the roof replaced and other works carried out from the landlord’s schedule of dilapidations.  If he had the property surveyed before he took on the lease he may have got away with a contribution towards replacing the roof and not foots the entire bill.

If you think trading from business premises is not for you and you decide to work from home you may still have to find money for insurance for stock and public liability if you invite customers to your home or attend fairs etc.  You may also discover that your local authority want a share of the action and apply business rates to part of your home, and if you own your home when you sell you may find you have to pay tax on part of the sale price.  You may also discover covenants that restrict you working from home to protect your neighbours.

Since the advent of in-car computers the police can check that your car is taxed and insured and you are licensed to drive.  The police can also check your insurance cover, so driving to and from your business can be viewed as business travel especially if you have stock onboard.  The same applies when travelling to and from fairs or to and from home if you work from home, these journeys are no longer Social, Domestic or Pleasure but work related and you may find you are now driving without insurance a very serious offence.

Given all the drawbacks and pitfalls there is nothing like being your own man after the taxman, local authority, landlord and insurance company have taken the best part of your profits.  You can now start work before everyone else, finish work several hours after everyone else, go home and complete the paperwork for acting as an agent for the taxman.

This article is only intended as a guide, your location may dictate what you can and cannot do dependent on local and national laws etc

Collectable Postcards The Letter Postcard	LQ | HQ

Vignette postcard have been produced in several formats though throughout they have an image set in a boarder or decoration that does not use all the available space on the front of the postcard.