Hello, my grandfather had a family postcard collection which was passed down to me. With some free pandemic time on my hands, I started to try and organize it and get an understanding of what life was like over 100 years ago when people sent postcards and not emails. There are over 500 postcards. Most of them are postmarked from 1907-1912 with a few earlier and a few later. I am curious to see if there is any value to the stamps or postcards either individually or as a collection. I tried to do some research on my own but I haven't got too far. I have taken a few photos and uploaded them here. Any advise on the best way to tackle this project would be appreciated.
Welcome. It is great that you have been taking a look through these and you family history. While the urban legend is that stamps can be worth a lot of money this is typically not true. Of course a rare stamp is occasionally found someone wins also occasionally wins the mega lottery. The chances are good that the material you have is worth more as postal history than what a single stamp might be worth. It would be best to post images of the entire postcard so the folks here can see the cancels and subject matter. Don
You came to exactly the right place. I'm no expert on many of the stamps on your postcards, or the postcards themselves, but there are many here who may be able to help.
Congrats on your inheritance! Speaking as a relative novice, please consider this:
1. Google is your best friend when it comes to figuring out the value of what you have. You won't get answers 100% tailored to your situation, of course, but you'll get some solid leads.
2. Once you have harvested Google, use this forum. Rest assured that many others have preceded you with similar questions. It's worth your time patience to query this forum's archives and comb through earlier threads. Archives will provide a lot of the info you're looking for (and some good info that you weren't expecting).
3. Friendly suggestion: hold off on posting new queries until you've put some effort into the first two points above. Here, you'll find a number of experts who respond to questions with surprising alacrity (do these people ever sleep?). And if you DO pose a question, you want to be clear and concise in how you articulate it. Questions are often (innocently) misinterpreted. Careful wording will reduce the chance that the thread will veer off into unexpected tangents. I'm still working on that myself; it's a trial-and-error thing.
Keep a sense of humor and enjoy the "journey" as you pursue knowledge. It's worth doing as long as it's fun.
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