Do you use them in your vacation picture albums to supplement the not-so-great Kodak moments? Any postcards tucked up on your bulletin board at work -- to help bring back a certain memory or to remember a special friend? What about your refrigerator art, any postcards on it? If these are the only places you can find postcards around your house, maybe you aren't a serious, bonafide postcard collector, but you do like them and are a potential collector.

Postcards are one of the top collectibles world-wide, competing with coins and stamps. They can be very inexpensive -- even free, take little space, are usually very artistic, and bring back nostalgic memories. Postcards are also great go-withs to other collections, no matter what you collect there's usually a postcard picturing or commemorating it.

Postcards as decor . . A newly renovated restaurant area in a local shopping mall uses huge enlargements of postcards and old advertising signs. These are applied to the tops of the dining tables, then the entire top is covered with a clear polyurethane. The fifties theme was really fun to look at, but folks were getting tired of lifting their lunches when I wanted to see what was on their table.

Taking a cyber tour . .
The Magic of Picture Postcards is a short, pictorial history on the Postcard Traders Association's website.

Photographs/Scans (c)2000 Barbara Crews, licensed to About, Inc.