Collecting History
Illawarra Mercury
Saturday December 6, 2008
In this era of mobile phones and emails, the postcard still has a place, writes LOUISE TURK. They can make you money too.
Next time you receive a $1 postcard of The Big Banana from nanna on one of her campervan holidays up the coast, think hard about its true worth.That glossy piece of cardboard - customarily stuck on the fridge for a few weeks and then binned - could well become an important cultural and historical document sometime later this century.Who knows whether the kitschy Coffs Harbour tourist attraction will still be a traffic-stopper on the Pacific Hwy in decades to come? If, heaven forbid, something happens to the iconic landmark, postcards depicting how the 44-year-old structure used to look may well become valuable.Contemporary postcards are tomorrow's collectables.David Gazzard has spent most of his life collecting and trading postcards and other printed items designed to last only for a short time such as programs or posters.In his shop, The Nostalgia Factory in Kangaroo Valley's main street, Gazzard has somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 postcards.He's not sure of the exact figure because there's still a few boxes of postcards yet to be sorted.It's a comprehensive collection, staggering in its size and breadth of subject matter.It comes as no surprise that his shop, run with wife Amanda, carries the largest assortment of postcards in NSW."Real photo" cards of early Australian locations are highly desirable at the moment because they are an authentic depiction of the past, says Gazzard.Postcards bearing off-the-beaten-track locations are rarer and more valuable than those which celebrated popular tourist areas. A postcard of the early Corrimal township, for example, would be more coveted by a collector than a card of Sydney Harbour published around the same time."The more obscure the postcard, the better it is," Gazzard says."The collectors are after that something they've never seen before. They might pay a lot of money for a card you might think is very inconspicuous but they don't have it, so it's sought-after."In his personal collection, which contains specimens not for sale, are postcards of the early Kangaroo Valley township, the oldest of which dates 1906.One of Gazzard's Sydney-based customers, browsing through the collection, spotted his family's old home, built in the late 1800s, in several of the postcards from around 1912."I am going to reproduce these postcards for him so that he will have some early images of the house in which he grew up," Gazzard says.As well as private buyers, historians and local councils show a keen interest in postcards that show early Australian towns.Other popular themes for postcard collectors include the military, motorcycles, cars, churches, emergency services, and scenes from overseas.Many postcards, depicting the reproduced work of Australian artists including Norman Lindsay and Ida Rentoul Outhwaite, are now demanding a premium price. Lindsay's art was often featured on cards produced through The Bulletin in 1903 and 1904. Gazzard says some of the cards in this series have fetched up to $500 each.To attract a strong price, the postcard needs to be in good condition. That means no creases in the image and no tears to the card. Its value can increase if there is something interesting in the hand-writing on the back of the card. It's also preferable for the postcard to be postmarked. And the clearer the postmark, the better. Sometimes a rare postmark can be more valuable than the postcard, says Gazzard."Not long ago, I sold an 1895 postmark from a former Indian state named Duttia," he says. " It was a very plain card, with no picture on it but it had a clear postmark and an envelope. They both sold for $560."Long before the reign of mobile phones and email, the postcard was the fashionable form of communication."From 1905 to the First World War there were literally millions of postcards and nearly everyone was a postcard collector," Gazzard explains. "There were so many postcard albums in those days."Yet not everyone appreciates the past with the same passion as Gazzard, who has kept most of his boyhood possessions including a collection of classic comics."A lot of postcard collections were unwittingly thrown out or sent to the tip," he says."Often when an older person dies their next of kin just bundles everything up and throws it out. The postcard market is becoming narrower all the time."Gazzard's massive postcard collection had a humble start. He bought one or two cards of his hometown and then wanted more. "Postcards are quite interesting, they do get you in," he says. "It's like any collectable. People will come into the shop and they are always after something new or something they haven't seen before. And I'm the same. I go all around Australia and I've been to England and America, looking for things."Gazzard is also an authority on vintage enamel and tin advertising signs, which he collects from around the world. Some of the enamel signs in his shop are more than 100 years old.Today's enamel sign collector needs deep pockets. Two years ago, Gazzard sold an old art deco-styled sign advertising the British Dominions Insurance Company for $16,000.But if you don't have that sort of money, postcard collecting is a more affordable and accessible hobby. Modern postcards generally range from 50 cents to $3. Expect to pay more, however, if the card shows a location before dramatic development or change has taken place."I recently sold a postcard of Burleigh Heads, which showed the beachfront and there was sort of nothing on the beachfront," he recalls."Even though it was only from 1959, the card went for about $23 because it depicted a scene that had been long gone."These modern cards, of which there are millions and millions, are a cheap way of people getting into the postcard market."At some future time, they will be collectables in their own right."
© 2008 Illawarra Mercury
