Country Images Magazine North Edition October 2016 | Page 20

Antiques

DERBYSHIRE ANTIQUES & COLLECTIBLES
by Maxwell Craven

COLLECTING
COUNTRY HOUSE POSTCARDS
The field of modern collectibles is vast and quite different from antiques as such, although there are areas
of overlap, especially in ceramics. I began collecting postcards after a largish suitcase full of Edwardian ones
that had once belonged to my grandfather was unearthed at his old house and I was, at about 13, allowed
to sort the contents; I was hooked.
A few years later I began regularly to accompany an aunt, who was a books,
postcards and paper ephemera dealer, to the Abergavenny Antiques Market Hall
fair - impenetrably cold, draughty, forbidding and Gothic at 5 am, let me assure
you! Here she stood on four Saturdays in each year. Sensing that the whole process
was probably boring me, she suggested I collect something inexpensive, so I could
rummage the stalls (including hers) to find items I wanted. I remembered grandpapa’s
trunk of cards and promptly suggested postcards, asking her what the cheapest variety
was for which to aim (as I was perennially penniless). She said that although seaside
views were about the cheapest, she thought that parish churches or country houses
would suit me best, and I chose country houses. It was, fatefully, an early step in my
architectural passions.
Since then I have collected them assiduously and have over 5,000. When I started
they were 6d to 1/-, but by the 1970s, 10p to 50p and still cheap as the proverbial
fried potato slice.
Postcards were first issued in 1870, blank both sides but with a printed on halfpenny
stamp. All you had to do was write a message on the obverse and address of recipient
on the reverse and post it.
The picture postcard was authorised in 1894, but not generally issued until 1899,
when the size was standardised at 51/2 by 31/2 inches (4 x 9cm), which remained
standard until metrication in the 1970s . (What will we do without Euro-regs?) In
these early examples, the picture was offset on one side to allow room for a message
and the address to go on the reverse as before. These are called undivided back cards
and are the earliest pictorial cards that people collect.
In 1902 the divided back was introduced, ushering in the post card as we know it:
picture bled out full page on the obverse and the message sharing the reverse with the
address.
There are so many types of postcard subject around I thought this time I would
confine myself to the country house variety – still by no means the most expensive.
People collect them, like me because of the image, others because they specialise in
various types of image or indeed in interesting reverse messages or postmarks. The
latter can include collectable types like the duplex mark (round, with another oval,
stripey, one beside it containing a serial number) or thumbnails – small round ones.
Also marks with RSO on the legend (railway sorting office) command a premium, as
more so ones marked on a railway travelling post office (TPO).
The country house post card gained traction because it was the prime way that
domestic staff could use to inter-communicate with friends and family employed at
other houses or at home. The delivery was then unfailingly same day, and the necessity
to be terse was of the essence, aiding those whose literacy skills were a trifle shaky.
A lot of country house owners had cards of their houses made specifically for this
reason, although others were, even then, published because their subjects were
popular attractions for visitors (‘trippers’). Houses of famous people (birth-places,
residences, etc) were also issued by private enterprise, and local post offices and village
shops also commissioned cards to sell to visitors. When I lived with my grandmother
near Dormansland in Surrey, the village store still had for sale pre-Great War real
photographic images of the main street for sale at 3d - worth about £6 or £8 today!
The most collectable image is the ‘real photographic’ type, where the image is printed
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