Western New York Postcard Club
A Club For Collectors Of Vintage Postcards
Meetings are held via Zoom. Links are emailed to club members and guests.To request a link, please send an email to Michael Bloch.
January 16, 2023 – 7:00 PM Eastern Time
Curt Teich Postcards and Factory Representative G.I. Pitchford
Curt Teich postcards and western U.S. representative, G.I. Pitchford. Learn about how the cards were sold, created, colorized, manipulated and printed. Presentation by Jeffrey Meikle, author of the fantastic book, Postcard America.
February 13, 2023 – 7:00 PM Eastern Time
Postcards About Concrete Production
Presentation by Clarissa Ferraris, a postcard collector (deltiologist) since she was 15, when she found about 2,000 postcards in her grandfather’s attic in Italy. She has been involved in various clubs over the years, she is now the Vice President of the Capitol-Beltway Postcard Club (DC, Maryland, Virginia area). She has written and published some articles on postcards. Her main interests in collecting are vintage postcards from Italy, Marche region and Naples, and Girl Scouts. She also collects modern postcards of political caricatures and events, including Covid or the pandemic. In addition, because of her long career in concrete research, she collects modern or vintage postcards of people at work with concrete and advertisements of concrete products. She participated in the NPCW 2021. She now lives in Columbia, MD.
Clarissa will present her collection of postcards related to concrete production and explain how it all works!! She would show a concrete ship and the construction of the Panama Canal, as well as homemade concrete mixers and much more.
March 13, 2023 – 7:00 PM Eastern Time
Presentation by Mark Jones of SM Postcards
Details to come
October 8, 2023
Annual Postcard Show And Sale
Millions of postcards from dealers from throughout the northeast United States. Show runs 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM. Perinton Community Center on Turk Hill Rd in Fairport, NY
View Recordings Of Past Meetings
Japanese Attack On San Francisco – Video
Factories That Printed Postcards – Video
People In The Workplace – Video
Newberry Library – Curt Teich Collection – Video
New York State Carousels – Video
Public Transportation in New York City – Video
Real Photo Postcards – Video
Mark Jones Talks About Postcards – Video
Postcards Between Two Lovers – Video
About Postcard Collecting
Collecting vintage postcards is an enjoyable hobby. In incorporates history, photography, different methods of printing and production. The mjority of postcards collected are from the late 1800s and the early 1900s. Postacrds were very popular in those years and most families had postcard albums in their homes to showcase the postcards people sent them in the mail.
The Golden Age of Postcards was from 1907-1915.
What do people collect? People collect postcards of the following categories:
Hometowns
Specific Cities, states and counties
Advertising
World’s Fairs
Holloween
Valentine’s Day
Thanksgiving
Christmas
Automobiles
Boats
Airplanes
Covered Bridges
Hotels
Restaurants
Main Street Views
Pets
Courthouses
Government Buildings
Real Photo Postcards by local photographers
Trains
Disasters
Famous People
Construction
And there are many more categories.
Collectors typically buy postcards from postcard dealers at postcard shows and online from eBay and other websites. Prices range anywhere from 25 cents to $50 and more. A wide variety of postcards are readily available for less than $10 each.
Many cities have local postcard clubs and many of these clubs host annual postcard shows with multiple dealers selling thousands of postcards.
There are many books about postcards and collecting postcards. One excellent book is Postcard America by Jeffrey Miekle.