Picture Post Cards.

I do have a substantial collection of post cards, it can be a rewarding hobby, but can involve a costly sum to purchase the cards.
I belonged to a club, most clubs collect both the cards and the stamps.
What can you find out about a card?
The subject of the picture be it a train it might be a Steam engine with a wheel formation of 0 4 0 this means it has no wheels in front or behind the four driving wheels, it might have a number of carriages how many and what livery are the painted in?
The post card would have been made in the early days in the local Stationery shop in the close vicinity in a back room, most were taken as a photograph, the negative was used each time to be place over a plain card then exposed to the light placing a copy of that photograph, these were just black on white, some even came out as sepia an orange colour, this had to be fixed that meant submerging in a solution and hanging out to dry. The reverse side would have printed on it the name of the manufacturer address a possible number of how many printed in this format, a dividing line for the address to be written and a space for the message an outline of the position of where the postage stamp should be glued.
It is possible to see what time and date it was posted, sometimes there were three posts a day, so a morning collection would be received later that same day. See: Where it was posted. The address that it was sent to, and the recipient.
The stamp that was on it shows the King ruling then.
In the early days all writing by the sender was by steel nib pen dipped in an ink bottle, as space was very limited the wording was simple, just saying from a person on holiday, “ Dad had a dip in the sea today ”.
These cards for collecting have been sold over again and again, it is interesting to see the lightly pencilled price on the back, from a few pence to many pounds, I had to stop buying them when they cost over £1 each.
I used to keep these in albums but when you have over a hundred it takes up too much space so I have now put each one in its own plastic sleeve, you can read each side without removing it. It is a problem of what category to put them, Area, Date, Coloured or Black on white. I use empty Christmas Card Boxes I can store about fifty in each.
Many pictures were painted over to pick out green as a tree or a red engine, I have several identical painted over and they do differ in the area covered.
If you have been a member of a Post Card Club then you become friends with other collectors who you know have a collection of a set that you are interested in they will show you them on their site and they will allow you to snag them.
Should you decide to join a club a monthly meeting, it seldom lasts more than a hour and a half, then a member will display a set of his post cards and perhaps give a little talk on them, there is always dealers there with thousands of post cards for sale. It only costs a fiver a year to be a member this covers the cost of the news letters and invitations from other clubs you are invited to go to.