Social History Attracts Post Card Collectors

"They are storytellers as much as they are collectors. Inquire about a postcard for sale at the annual Toronto Postcard Club show at the Old Mill Inn and you receive a free history lesson along with it, " writes reporter Noor Javed on Toronto's the Star.com website.

George Sachs, president of the club, is quoted in the piece as saying, “The lure of postcards for many collectors is that they are interested in social history. They love reading the messages on the back as much as looking at the image on the front.” 

Siobhan Angley, a dealer and one of the few women at the show says postcard collecting is an education in itself.

She's quoted as saying, "“You aren’t going to bump into any dimwits here. They are people who have photographic memories. They might have 10,000 cards at home and they know every card, they know every image, they know what’s on the back. They can identify the stamp, they can remember it, they know the series, and they can identify the publisher. And they are always in search for more. It really caters to packrats."

Shown above, dealer Derek Dalton's holding a cloth postcard postmarked in 1906 which most likely depicts a Coast Guard cutter.

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