Welcome to Vintage Postcards.

Why Collect Postcards

Postcard Collecting or Deltiology as it is sometimes called, can be a fascinating hobby. There are of course those out there who could not imagine a more boring, tedious and pointless thing to do, but that's what makes us all different and have different interests. You might be into active pursuits, whether that be playing football or mountain climbing. You might breed dogs or be a world traveller, but postcard collecting is probably the only interest that can be happily and realistically linked to absolutely any other hobby or interest. If you are interested in football then you might collect postcards that have a footballing theme or if you are a mountain climber you might collect mountain scenes, a dog breeder could collect postcards that feature their particular breed of dog. There are postcards available that feature just about any theme or subject you can think of.

Topographical - Towns, Villages, City's, Buildings

Most postcard collectors however are collecting cards that relate to a particular place, town or city. Usually where they live or where historically they originate from. These are referred to as topographical postcards. Your chosen location might not have had many postcards produced featuring it, or there may have been many thousands produced. You might even focus your collection even more specifically than that. For example I collect postcards depicting one particular town. I look for postcards featuring the major buildings and churches in the town, but don't bother with other general scenes of the area. What I really focus on however are views of the town centre shops and businesses before 1930 and then restricted to just a handful of streets. This specialisation means that I have to search hard and be prepared to pay the going rate which in my case can be between £10.00 and £40.00 per card. There is even one church in the area that surprisingly doesn't seem to have ever featured on a postcard but maybe one day I will come across it.

Themes or Subjects

Rather than collecting topographically (or geographically) you might build a collection based on a theme. As mentioned this could be as broad as postcards of animals, or narrowed down to postcards of dogs, or maybe narrower still and postcards of one particular breed of dog or maybe almost ridiculously specific and narrower still of your preferred breed of dog wearing hats! You really can be as specific as you like, but of course the more specific you are the harder it will be to find your postcards but on the plus side, the less you are likely to spend.

Some collectors are looking for cards with a theme such as babies, nurses, soldiers, vicars, cars, war scenes the list just goes on. There are collectors of seaside humour postcards, silk WW1 postcards or specific artists featured on postcards. Some collectors only collect postcards produced by a particular publisher. Just look at your interests, your surroundings and your history and you are bound to be able to focus on an area or subject matter to collect. For example if you like or are from the lake district then you might decide to collect scenes photographed and published by G P Abraham of Keswick. These beautiful, atmospheric scenes were mostly available just before the first world war and would make a fascinating collection. You might instead decide that you want to collect postcards depicting pubs and hotels in Oxford between certain dates, or views of the town where your grandparents grew up taken at the time of their childhood, the choice is yours.

The message tells it's own story

The messages written on postcards can be as fascinating as the subject on the front. They are often discussing mundane every day matters or discussing the outbreak of war or the death of someone famous or often just a quick message to say here's another card for your collection and I will be around for tea tomorrow. In the years before WW1 postcards were almost the equivalent of texting today. You could post a card in the morning and it could be delivered locally that same day.

Collecting postcards is practical, educational and inexpensive

Postcard collecting as a hobby makes a great deal of sense. Many postcards like a lot of the ones on this website can be picked up for just £1 each, you can quickly and inexpensively build an interesting collection. They are obviously small and light enough to transport and take up little room, so even the smallest home has space for a couple of albums of postcards

How to use the Vintage Postcards website

This website contains a selection of old postcards that we currently have available, we are adding more postcards every day so please be sure to check back on a regular basis for the latest additions.

We have tried to make it as easy as possible to find postcards on our website. You can either choose from the menu on the left which will take you to a list of city's, towns and villages or you can enter a word in the search bar at the top right. You can also browse our postcards by subject or by publisher using the links in the menu.

You can also view the vintage postcards that we have on Ebay and our 100% Feedback by clicking here Our Postcards on Ebay