Christmas special: Postcard Stockings galore! - Picture Postcard ...

POSTCARD THEME
PAGE TELEVISION
continued from page 13
When television
first entered households, complete
attention to it was paramount. This is beautifully demonstrated
here with the head of the household going off to
work on his hands and knees so as not to disturb the family
viewing!
THE DEALER AND
COLLECTOR SHOULD BE
FRIENDS...
(from page 11)
round and look at his stock -
which contained some rare
and exciting cards. Many of
these were at a price which
would make the average
punter at postcard fairs
blink a bit, so there was the
added attraction for him
that here was someone who
was prepared to spend a lot
of money for good and rare
cards without quibbling.
But was it fair to other
Portsmouth collectors?
However, I agree with
the comment made by Ken
Hassell that if cards are
advertised as being on sale,
then they should not go on
the table until the public
arrive. But, as I write this,
more possibilities of claims
to unfairness strike me, if
we take things to extremes.
If I come to a fair with
Andrew, thus allowing him
to go buying cards, is that
unfair to both collectors and
to dealers who have to stay
at their stall?
I'm afraid the truth of
the matter is that life frequently
is unfair, and the
more you try to make it fair,
the more complicated it
gets, as I hope I have
demonstrated here. So, to
return to my previous point,
by and large, I don't think it
is wrong for dealers to trade
before fairs. I think there
One way of
teaching those
new to collecting
why prices vary
is to show contrasting
cards of
the same scene.
I’m showing
three postcards
of South Parade
Pier - but with
very differing
prices. The first
is by the well-known Portsmouth photographer, Stephen
Cribb. It shows the pier newly rebuilt after a fire, and was
posted in August 1908. It cost me £3
The second one, by an unknown photographer just a few
days earlier has, in addition to the pier, some of the
bathing machines, and an intriguing piece of machinery in
the foreground.
This may have
been to do with
the building of
the pier - if you
look very carefully,
you can
see that work is
still going on.
All this is reflected
in the price
tag - £8
14 Picture Postcard Monthly December 2009
One of my
favourite modern postcard artists is
Fernand Zacot who signs himself simply ZACOT. This
superb design was done for the French telephone directory
and published as a postcard by PTT Cartophilie in 1994.
may even be advantages for
collectors. Let us suppose
that Dealer A, who has a
regular customer for a particular
subject, sees a card
on a stall where Dealer B
does not specialise in that
subject. He may buy it with
his client in mind, obviously
at a discount. When the
client comes along, Dealer
A pulls out this card and
says, I've got this for you.
He may add a slight profit,
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he may even, in the spirit of
good customer relations,
make no profit on that particular
card at all. His client
now has the card with
which he is happy, whereas
he might never have gone
to Dealer B. And once again,
of course, this raises the
objection - is this fair to
other buyers and collectors?
Where I do agree with
collectors is that this is all
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