I Require Assistance...

[wolf63]

Can anybody help me?

I am trying to value postcards so that they can be sold online for Oxfam. I am down to the ones that ‘might’ be worth a little more money but I am ever so slightly out of my depth.

I have scanned this card – can anybody add information that might point me in the right direction. https://postimg.cc/image/lr3008p93/

The card is by ‘Gale & Polden’ in their Wellington range. I know that they specialise in military postcards.

But – I don’t know if the guys in the picture as soldiers or prisoners. There is a horse and cart so it must be pretty old.

[Buenchico]

https://picclick.co.uk/GB-1909-1d-PPC-of-Royal-Engineers-Chatham-132437554812.html

[wolf63]

I don't know how you managed that so quickly, I have been looking for over an hour.

Your next task is - is there any logical explanation for the Titanic stamp on these cards?

https://postimg.cc/gallery/31ivyyd3k/

[Buenchico]

That just looks like an incredibly crude attempt by a scammer to make a virtually worthless postcard look like something worth a fortune!

The postcards were clearly sent from Oban and Gateshead, to addresses in Leicester and London respectively, so there would be no requirement for them to ever get near to the Titanic. Further, the second one is clearly dated April 10th 2011, which is before the ship was launched in May of that year (and exactly a year, to the day, before she set sail on her maiden voyage).

Anything passing through the Titanic's mail room would probably have been franked by a small rubber stamp, rather than having a hefty great solid 'postmark', which looks exactly like the output from an inkjet printer. Further, it's more likely that they would have used the word 'aboard', rather than 'on board', as the (US) National Postal Museum at the Smithsonian Institution did in the title of their 2001 exhibition:
https://postalmuseum.si.edu/fireandice/titanicsmailclerks.html

[Canary42]

Surely 1911 Chris ?

[Buenchico]

PS: Although it didn't help with looking for the postcard in your original question, this specialist collector's site is to best place to look for old postcards:
https://www.delcampe.net/en_GB/collectables/postcards/

[Buenchico]

What's a century between friends though, Canary42?

Mea culpa!

;-)

[Canary42]

LOL

[wolf63]

Thanks - I agree with what you have said. I have left them on my 'think about' pile for a while as the stamp just didn't seem to fit in with the dates and places of posting.

The first time I saw the cards there were pound signs whirling around in my head, but I started to get a bit suspicious.

Not that I am advertising but this is my collection thus far https://tinyurl.com/ycyyw3w2 and https://tinyurl.com/y8plndm3

[wolf63]

I didn't even notice that you were 100 years out.

I have been using Delcamp and eBay mainly. I have only found one card over £10. But every little helps.

My eyesight is blurry just now and that is slowing things down.

[Buenchico]

Most postcards aren't worth a lot and it can be very hard to find anyone who's interested in them. However you might get lucky with a few.

I like the St Mark's Square one. I thought that I knew quite a lot about advertising history but that one's new to me!

Your second link appears to be dead though.

[wolf63]

The coca-cola card was actually one of my own. The rest are German and the information on the cards is in tiny writing.

The other link was to our main 'shop front' https://tinyurl.com/y8plndm3
It is amazing the subjects that people write books about. If you know any famous authors I could do with some signed books. ☺☺

[margarettom]

Why not take them to be valued at an auction house? If they are worth anything they will tell you.

[jno]

You can see the Chatham dockyard pump house in that first card; it's still there, now a restaurant, I think.

Shame that one of the New Orleans hotel doesn't show the resident ghost, it might have been worth a lot more.