Selling Postcards In General, Advice Needed

Hello good people. I need some advices. Collection and selling stamps for some time and would like to an offer to extend the old postcards.

I wonder what determines the price of a postcard?
Stamp catalogs can give one an approximate idea of #8203;#8203;how much something is worth, and what is the matter with postcards? Stamps catalogues provide only a rough idea. How is the market postcards in relation to market stamps?
Does it pay to extend the offer and on postcards?
Any word from you would be nice.

The_Pope, Greetings:

One simple strategy is to scan your card, and search on Google images to find it for sale, elsewhere.

As you learn the URLs of the major postcard dealers, you'll be able to do text searches on their sites, to boot.

Remember that the prices you see are subject to a calculus that may have nothing to do with the prices at which you could actually sell your cards.

For example, let's say that a seller has a nice card of an old bridge in Wingding, Alabama. He can price that card so that it is of interest to people who collect postcards of Alabama or people who collect postcards of bridges. There are lots of cards like that, so the price would be a few dollars, and the card might 'move' relative quickly.

Alternately, he could price the card at twenty dollars, and wait for the one guy in the world who is nuts for *anything* from Wingding, Alabama: postcards, old photos, postal history, restaurant match books, tax receipts ...

Off hand, you won't know if you are seeing the 'price at which the card moves' or 'the price at which the card waits'.

Moreover, you will need to decide what *you* want to do.

There are a number of auction houses that sell cards in lots of 100s or 1000s. Unless you are looking for a new hobby - the hobby of selling your cards one-by-one - you might want to move them as one lot, get one check, and be done with it.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

with ikeyPikey above.

Also, look on ebay or Delcampe at the categories under postcards or post cards. Putting an item under the best-selling category does help, as well as usin for the title, in case people just search for the name or names of a subject(s) (which about 50% do).

When looking at items on ebay remember to look at the Completed Listings, those which have sold, and notice their strategies for selling, including shipping cost, postive feedbacksm description, combined shipping, dubjects and names used in titles and descriptions.

Little details count. Good luck!

Oh yes, don't forget the stamps and cancels (postmarks) on the reverse sides of the postcards. They might add value or be the deciding factor in a buyer's decision. The hand writing, the postmark, the names invloved, etc, etc.

I find it hard to get hexagonal postmarks sometimes because only the postcard front is described and not the important cancel (to me anyway!).

Thanks for the advices. And how big/small is the market? Guess much smaller than Stamps?

While Puzzler is certainly correct, especially for old stamp hounds like me, I am surprised by how much of the postcard market is driven strictly by the subject on the 'art' side of the card.

If you drop-by a postcard dealer's table at a 'bourse', they might have 10-20 yards of postcards, but I've yet to see a divider labeled "Flag Cancels" (for example).

Never mind how often the canceled stamp has been removed !@#$%!

The buyers' interest & sellers' prices might reflect all of the things Puzzler mentioned, and you should be a good lad and include then in your listings (should you go the one-by-one route), but I think it is fair to say that most postcard collectors don't seem to care or, worse, prefer their cards 'unused' ... [suppressed] rant [/suppressed].

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Goodness! How could I forget to mention Ms Nicholson!

The Encyclopedia of Antique Postcards: A Fully Illustrated History and
Price Guide to More Than 100 Collecting Categories from Attwell to Zodiac

Author: Susan Brown Nicholson

Publisher: Wallace-Homestead Book Co, ISBN 10: 0870697307, ISBN 13: 9780870697302

While any absolute prices will not be terribly useful, Ms Nicholson's book correctly captures the tastes of the market and, moreover, her book has come to influence (I'll withhold 'dictate') the tastes of the market, to boot.

You can find the book at Abebooks for U$D <20, delivered & installed.

Oh, and as to one of your original questions:

Postcards are a whole lot more free-wheeling than stamps. Publishers came & went with nary a trace, except the odd card here & there which is, often, untraceable. Several publishers turned-out tens of thousands of different cards over the decades so, even in the age of digital media, a 'catalog' would be wildly expensive to compile.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Whats hot stuff in Postcards that sell the best?
I could see that 1950- recent postcards are pretty worthless.

Some modern post-1950 postcards do hold value. I've sold a number of them in the $20-$50 range, but it's very hard to predict what has value as it's all about the demand at the moment the auction is held. Some esoteric topics do better than generic topics. Like Puzzler wrote, many other factors also affect selling prices - stamps, postmarks, condition, labels, etc. Best thing to do is check completed sales on ebay to find a broad range of what is selling and an estimation of selling prices. Also remember selling methods also affect prices - how much is your shipping, where are you wiling to ship, did you scan both sides, how much information did you add to description and how much material do you have to offer.

Turn of the century, up to 1920's, maybe 30's, I'm not sure nor an expert, but I've seen Christmas postcards depicting Santa Clause go somewhere around an average of $10??

It would be nice if someone would share knowledge here. If its not a secret...