Thursday, Nov. 9, 2000 | 9:48 a.m.
Postcards are the third most-collected item in America, behind stamps (No. 1) and coins (No. 2), according to one expert. Baseball cards are falling out of favor because of questionable practices by some promoters, and collecting parking tickets doesn't count.
"Postcards are comparatively inexpensive, which is why there is so much interest," said Bill Cote, editor of Barr's Postcard News in Lansing, Iowa. "It's more of a fun hobby than an investment hobby."
He noted that several years ago a card depicting a painting of a Waverly motorcycle sold for $14,500.
"It was partially done as a publicity stunt," Cote said. "The card, an advertisement of Waverly motorcycles, was signed by the artist who did it -- Alfonse Mucha. Only three of that card were known to exist, but after the publicity over the sale, upwards of 20 or 30 of that design turned up.
"The (value of a) majority of cards collected range from $10 to $100."
Cote said baseball card collecting has taken a downturn in recent years because "too many unscrupulous dealers got into the hobby and ruined it for young people and regular collectors."
Cote's newspaper, a twice-monthly tabloid, started out as a catalogue for collectors and traders.
"It was created by Chester Barr 26 years ago," Cote said. "He was a stamp collector and in his acquisitions he came across thousands of attractive, picture postcards and began to sell them also.
"In the process, he found thousands of people involved in collecting."
Billions of postcards have been printed during the past 130 years and millions of people around the world have become collectors.
The official term for the collecting and study of postcards is "deltiology."
There are more than 80 deltiologist clubs in the United States and Canada. Several hundred dealers make a living buying and selling the cards. It is impossible to determine the number of collectors, who range from the casual (with a few cards kept as souvenirs) to the avid (who have thousands).
"Most people collect topics," Cote said.
Nationally, according to Cote, the most popular topic of postcard-collecting is Santa Claus. Halloween is second.
"Their values are not that high, but they are highly sought after," Cote said. "The third most popular topic is real photographs -- street scenes, small-town views. Everybody wants to see how their street, how their house looked in the early 1900s. They are not collectors, per se. They just want to have that feeling of nostalgia."
History on postcards
Howard Klein, 48, fits into the third category -- for the past 20 years he has been fanatically collecting anything related to old Las Vegas, the city he adopted as his home 26 years ago.
Among his photographs, place mats, signs, books, paintings, telephone booths old telephone books, high school year books and other relics are thousands of postcards, neatly stored in boxes or placed in binders.
Klein's parents bought the Desert Rose Motel on South Las Vegas Boulevard in 1961 and sold it about five years ago to make way for the Monte Carlo. As he watched old Las Vegas being torn down around his parent's motel, he became interested in preserving its memory.
"I want to write a 'History of Las Vegas through Post Cards.' Through the Desert Rose Motel, I had access to obtaining history on the Strip. We are part of that history," Klein said.
But Klein doesn't have a lot of time to write, he's too busy collecting.
He has several albums filled with postcards, each album focusing on a different subject or different part of town.
One of his favorite subjects is the New Frontier, which opened in 1942 as the Hotel Last Frontier.
"I consider Vegas to be the last frontier," he said. "The last wild west state."
A number of his post cards are currently on display at the Nevada State Museum in Las Vegas.
Among his collection is a postcard printed for the Binion Horseshoe casino in the 1950s, depicting an atomic explosion at various stages of the blast.
"My personal favorite is the postcard for the Pyramid Motel," he said. "Everyone thinks the Luxor was the first pyramid on the strip. It wasn't. The motel was located about where Harrah's is now."
Was the Mandalay Bay, where Klein is a valet attendant, the first with that name? No. That would be the Mandalay Bar.
The Venetian was preceded by the Villa Venice motel, according to a postcard in Klein's collection. It once stood on a lot next door to where the casino now stands.
The Santa Fe casino? There was a Santa Fe Trail Motel.
"I'm missing a lot of places, like the Orinda Motel," Klein, who calls himself a Las Vegas "evolutionist," said.
His collection of post cards dates back to about 1905. It depicts old schools, courthouses, bars, churches and other establishments that have long since been razed and replaced.
Klein has a lot of duplicate cards, including 3,000 of Castaways, where the Mirage is now located.
"I got them for a good price," he said.
Klein's collection of memorabilia has grown so large, he and his wife, Lynne, are going to sell their two-story home next year and buy a bigger one.
"Lynne is great. She doesn't have a problem with me buying all this stuff, but she wonders what I'm going to do with it," he said.
Bob Miller, with Academy Fine Books and Antiques on East Charleston Boulevard, also has a large collection of postcards, but he doesn't limit himself to Las Vegas.
"Nazi postcards are very popular," Miller said.
But the World War II picture postcards of German army officers are not as popular as anything related to Theodore Roosevelt.
"I have the best collection in the state (of Roosevelt items)," he said.
Roosevelt postcards may sell for $45 to $55.
History of postcards
Photography was invented around 1837. According to writer Stefano Neis, in "A Brief History of Postcard Types" for Shiloh Postcards Web site, the first postcard appeared in 1848.
Neis and author Marian Klamkin, in her book "Picture Postcards," (Dodd, Mead and Co., 1974) are among those who have traced the history of postcards, which did not come into general use until around 1869 in Germany.
The earliest postcard in America was mailed in 1870. In 1873 the U.S. post office developed the pre-stamped, 3 1/2-inch by 5 1/2-inch postcard.
The "Pioneer Era" of postcards was before 1898. The greatest concentration of postcards were from New York, Philadelphia and other large metro areas in the U. S. and abroad.
Postcards of this era cost one cent. Some people think postcards were the catalyst for the phrase "a penny for your thoughts." Actually, author Jonathan Swift used it in a letter he wrote in 1729 and he probably got it from Shakespeare, who may have stolen it from an even earlier writer.
Until 1907 postcards had undivided backs. Senders could only put an address on that side. Any message had to be written on the front, which meant the message was written in the margins around a picture (either photograph or drawing).
When the era of "divided backs" began in 1907, it became the Golden Age of post cards (1907-1915). Senders used the back of their cards to write a message (left side) and the address (right side). The front of the card now was reserved for the picture.
Historians say this seemingly minor change created an addiction for postcards, 75 percent of which were printed in Europe -- mostly in Germany, the world leader in lithography at the time.
At the height of the postcard mania, World War I broke out and the hobby crashed. The supply of postcards from Germany stopped. The lower quality cards printed in the U.S. and England, as well as recurrent influenza epidemics and war shortages, crippled the hobby. During the war years the telephone replaced the postcard as a fast way to keep in touch. Movies began to become a major pastime.
The years between 1930 and 1945 became known as the "Linen Era" of post cards. New technology allowed printing on postcards with a high rag content, giving the cards a textured feel. They were also cheaper to produce and allowed the use of brighter colors. They became extremely popular with roadside businesses and, in essence, documented each step of the building of the nation's highway system.
Today, linen cards have been replaced with "photochrome," colorful, high-quality cards first used in 1939 by Union Oil Co. service stations.
The first full week of May is National Postcard Week.
"A lot of collectors produce cards in small amounts to help celebrate," Cote said. "We encourage people to make their own cards, with the help of commercial printers. A lot of people do their own hand drawings. They may make a few dozen to a few hundred and sent postcard greetings."
He said the post office caters to collectors of postcards and stamps.
"If requested, the clerk will go out of his way to hand-cancel some of the collectible cards being sent," he said.
But it is advertising that has ensured postcards will always be a fact of life in America.
Breweries, tobacco companies, manufacturers and others found postcards cheap ways to promote their products.
"Several years ago a lot of companies realized that advertising on the face of a little piece of cardboard could be very lucrative," Cote said.
archive
