Old Postcard Collecting: A Beginner's Guide

Filokartie is the collecting of postcards, and it covers far more ground than most newcomers expect. Its main branches are divided by subject, by period, and by function, and a beginning collector usually starts with one narrow branch rather than with postcards in general. A budget is set the same way: a fixed monthly figure, decided in advance, that the collection must live inside.

The term itself comes from the Greek philos (loving) and the French carte (card), and it is used across Central Europe for what English speakers usually just call postcard collecting. The Czech-language literature on the subject treats it as a field with its own vocabulary, its own reference works, and its own markets, which is a useful starting point for anyone who wants to go past the shoebox stage. A collector who wants to see how a long-running postcard catalogue was organised, with its numbered sections for subjects and its separate listings for stamps, can look at the structure preserved at the old auction catalogue, which shows how the branches were sorted in practice.

What does filokartie cover, and how do its branches differ?

Filokartie covers any postcard that was actually printed and, usually, actually posted. The field is normally split three ways, and the splits overlap.

By subject. Topographical cards show a place: a street, a square, a station, a mill, a school. Subject cards show something else: a trade, a costume, a joke, a ship, a flower, a saint. Portrait cards show a person, sometimes named, sometimes not. Topographical cards are the largest branch by far and the one most often used as historical evidence, because a dated photograph of a street that has since been rebuilt is a document.

By period. The rough divisions used in the trade are the pioneer era (roughly 1890 to 1905), the golden age (about 1905 to 1918), the interwar years, and everything after 1945. The dates are approximate and vary by country, but the logic is sound: paper quality, printing technique, and postal regulations all changed, and those changes are what let a collector date a card.

By function. A card can be a greeting, an advertisement, a military field post, a charity issue, or a plain view. Function matters because it determines how the card was printed, how many survived, and what a collector will pay for it.

The branches differ in difficulty as much as in content. Topographical cards of large cities are common and cheap. Cards of a single small village, or of a single factory that closed in 1911, can be genuinely hard to find, and the price reflects that.

How do you start collecting old postcards?

Start with one place or one subject that you already know something about. That single decision removes most of the noise from a market that contains millions of items.

A workable first year looks like this:

1. Pick a narrow theme. One town, one river valley, one occupation, one publisher. Narrow themes are easier to research and easier to complete, and completing a small theme teaches more than accumulating a large random pile.
2. Learn the local vocabulary. Format names, paper terms, and printing terms are the tools of dating. A collector who cannot tell a lithograph from a phototype cannot tell a 1902 card from a 1928 reprint.
3. Buy in person before buying online. Flea markets, postcard fairs, and stamp and postcard exchanges let you handle the card, check the reverse, and compare two copies side by side. Online buying is fine later, once you can judge a scan.
4. Record every purchase. Date bought, price paid, seller, and any note about condition. A collection without records is a pile.
5. Store it properly. Acid-free sleeves, a rigid box, a dry room, and no direct sunlight. Postcards are paper, and paper fails slowly and then suddenly.

The most common beginner error is buying broadly because the cards are cheap. Cheap cards are cheap for a reason, usually because they are common, and a hundred common cards do not add up to a collection with a shape.

How do you set a budget for collecting postcards?

Set the budget before you set the want list, not after. The order matters, because a want list drawn up without a budget tends to be a list of the most expensive cards in the field.

A simple method:

• Fix a monthly ceiling. An amount you can spend without noticing it elsewhere. Small and regular beats large and occasional, because it keeps you in the market long enough to learn it.
• Split it. A common split is most of the money on one or two good cards, and the rest on cheap reference material: a local history book, a catalogue, a magnifier, sleeves.
• Set a single-card limit. A figure above which you walk away and think for a week. This is the rule that prevents the one purchase you regret.
• Keep a reserve. A small fund for the card you did not expect, the one that appears once and then vanishes into another collection.
• Price condition honestly. A card with a crease, a missing corner, or a heavy postmark is worth a fraction of a clean copy, and the fraction is larger than beginners assume. Paying full price for a damaged card is the fastest way to waste a budget.

Two further points are worth stating plainly. First, postcards are not a liquid asset. Selling takes time, and the spread between what a dealer pays and what a dealer charges is wide. Second, the market is not a single market. A card that is common in the country where it was printed can be scarce three borders away, and prices follow the local supply, not a global average.

What should a beginner avoid?

Avoid reprints sold as originals, and avoid any seller who will not show the reverse. The reverse carries the postmark, the stamp, the publisher's mark, and often the printer's number, and those are the dating evidence. A scan of the front alone tells you very little.

Avoid buying a large lot before you can sort it. Lots are priced on the assumption that the buyer can identify what is inside, and a beginner usually cannot. Buy lots later, when the sorting is the pleasure rather than the problem.

Avoid treating a price guide as a price. Guides record asking prices at a moment in time, and asking prices are not sale prices.

Where does the reference material come from?

Local museums, regional archives, and national postal museums hold postcard collections and often publish finding aids. In the Czech context, the National Museum and the Postal Museum in Prague are the usual starting points for anyone researching printed views of towns and villages. A collector who learns to use an archive catalogue will date cards faster than one who relies on dealer descriptions alone.

The field rewards patience more than money. A collector with a narrow theme, a fixed budget, and a habit of writing things down will, after a few years, hold something that no amount of casual buying would have produced.