What makes a postcard valuable
Three forces set the price of almost every postcard:
- Scarcity. How many were made, and how many survive. Real photo cards made by a local photographer in a run of a few dozen are scarce. Mass-printed views of tourist sites are not.
- Demand. How many collectors want it. Some topics, like Halloween and railroad depots, have large and dedicated followings. Others have few.
- Condition. A sharp, clean card is worth far more than a creased or stained copy of the same view.
The most valuable cards score well on all three.
The categories collectors chase
Real photo main streets and small towns
A real photo postcard of a small town's main street, with people, wagons or early cars, is one of the most consistently wanted cards in American collecting. Collectors of a state or county may have looked for a particular view for years. The smaller the town, the scarcer the card tends to be. See real photo postcard values.
Occupations and industry
Crews at the mine portal, loggers with their teams, threshing outfits, blacksmiths at the forge, creamery workers, telephone operators, mail carriers with their wagons. These cards document how people worked, and specialist collectors of each trade compete for them.
Storefronts and interiors
A general store with the owner on the porch, the inside of a barber shop, a saloon bar, a print shop, a bank counter. Interiors are scarce because photographing indoors was difficult, and they show details found nowhere else.
Disasters and events
Floods, fires, tornadoes, train wrecks and their aftermath, along with parades, county fairs, circuses arriving by rail, political rallies and celebrations. Local photographers sold these cards within days of the event, often in small numbers.
Depots and railroads
Depot views with a train at the platform or a crowd waiting are among the most wanted town views of all, because they appeal to both town and railroad collectors. See railroad and depot postcards.
Early automobiles, garages and aviation
The first car in town, early garages and filling stations, auto dealers, races, and early flying meets and balloon ascensions all have strong followings.
Halloween
Early Halloween postcards, especially embossed designs from about 1905 to 1915 with jack-o'-lanterns, witches, black cats and children in costume, are among the most valuable printed cards. Certain publishers and artists, and mechanical cards with moving parts, command the highest prices. See vintage Halloween postcards.
Novelty and unusual cards
Hold-to-light cards, mechanical cards, cards with silk, feathers, real hair or glitter, leather and wood cards, and other novelties survive in smaller numbers in working order. See leather postcards.
Advertising and political
Cards issued by local businesses in small runs, and political and campaign cards, attract collectors of the brands, causes and candidates as well as postcard collectors.
The most valuable postcard ever sold
The record usually cited belongs to a hand-drawn card that the English writer Theodore Hook is said to have mailed to himself in 1840, often described as the oldest known picture postcard. It was widely reported to have sold at auction in London in 2002 for £31,750. No American postcard you are likely to find comes close, but individual real photo cards of rare subjects do sell for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.
What does not make a card valuable
- Age alone. A card from 1908 can be worth very little if it is a common view in poor condition.
- Famous places. Popular landmarks were printed in huge numbers.
- The stamp. Early postcard stamps are almost always common.
- Bright color. Some of the plainest real photographs are worth the most.
Where valuable cards hide in a collection
Valuable postcards rarely sit on the first page of an album. In collections I look through, they tend to turn up in a few predictable places:
- The back pages of albums, where later additions and loose cards were tucked in.
- Envelopes and small boxes kept separately inside a larger box, often holding the cards a collector considered special.
- Among family snapshots, because real photo postcards were often filed with ordinary photographs.
- Between holiday greetings, where a few Halloween cards hide among dozens of Christmas and birthday cards.
- In the dullest-looking stacks, because gray photographs do not catch the eye.
This is one more reason never to cherry-pick a collection before it has been valued as a whole. The cards that look valuable are frequently not the ones that are.
Value is local
A card that is ordinary in one place can be precious in another. A real photo view of a small Kansas town might mean little to a collector in Maine and a great deal to a collector of that county, or to a family whose grandparents ran the store in the picture. That is why the same card can sell for very different amounts on different days, and why the right buyer matters as much as the card itself.
A note on reproductions
As prices for the best cards rose, reproductions followed: modern prints of famous Halloween designs, copied real photo views and souvenir reprints. Most are easy to spot once you know what to look for. Reproductions are usually on bright white, smooth modern card stock, sometimes with a slightly blurry image from being copied, and the backs often carry modern printing or no period details at all. A genuine old card shows its age in the paper itself.
Questions people ask
What are the most valuable postcards from 1900 to 1910?
Real photo views of small towns and events, early embossed Halloween cards, mechanical and hold-to-light cards, early exposition souvenirs, and some undivided-back cards from before 1907 with unusual subjects.
Are rare postcards always old?
Mostly, but not entirely. Some linen and chrome cards of roadside businesses, diners and early motels are scarce and wanted.
How can I tell if one of my cards is rare?
Check sold listings for the same town and subject. If you cannot find another example, it may be scarce. A buyer who sees your whole collection can tell you which cards stand out.
Sources and further reading
- Playle's: how to identify and date real photo postcards
- U.S. House of Representatives, History, Art & Archives: postcards and the 1909 Payne-Aldrich Tariff
Ready to sell? Compare where to sell old postcards, or see how to sell old postcards step by step.