Featured Holiday Postcards & Desirability

Hello Folks,

How do you rank the desirability of certain holidays when collecting vintage postcards? Obviously there are going to be exceptions for particular cards but I'm looking for general thoughts.

Here is my ranking;

1. Halloween - The most sought after of holiday postcards. Usually very collectable and in demand. Lots of opportunities for great subject matter. They seem to be fairly scarce or perhaps there are just in high demand and hoarded by collectors?
2. Christmas - Has lots of collectors and many great desirable cards but there are lots of less sought after cards too. Varies greatly based on subject matter and design attractiveness. I would think that all of the holidays Christmas postcards are most plentiful and are found everywhere.

(Not quite sure how to rank the following)

3. New Years - Haven't see tons of these. Would think there would be room for great subject material.
4. Easter - Lots and lots of cards out there. Have seen some great ones though. Who can resist baby bunnies and chicks on a postcard?
5. Thanksgiving

Your Thoughts?

Have I missed anything? (I'm fairly new to collecting holiday postcards)

Paging @cxgirl

 

i would have thought number 5 would be higher.......it's the number one travel holiday in the USA.

 

I would put Valentine cards as #3
Christmas and Halloween will sell well anytime of year, I find the other holidays increase when they are in season and then drop down in price - as an example, if you buy Easter cards in the summer you can get good ones for less money.

 

Thanks

Do you have an opinion on why Thanksgiving cards seem to sell for lackluster prices and don't seem to be that popular in the hobby?

 

maybe cuz folks go to see folks...so don't send as many cards...

 

for me it is the graphics, most have turkeys in some form, and the colours are usually fall colours. Yes, fall colours in nature are quite spectacular, but on Thanksgiving postcards they just don't pop for me. I love eating turkey, but on postcards you can only have so many, again just my opinion
sending you a message

 

back in the day lots of them were sent, just not as desirable for collectors

I love reading the messages on the old postcards, a glimpse into days gone by

 

I love eating turkey, but on postcards you can only have so many,

Oh, Ya?
Say that about Pumpkins..... I dares ya...I double dares ya !!!

 

sorry, I can't say that, I don't like pumpkin pie, but I do like pumpkins on Halloween cards

 

Realistically, as far as "quick sell" was concerned when I ran a forum covering the topic (1985 - 2000),

Hallowe'en cards with "Hold To Light" dancing skeletons were easiest.

Second were Christmas cards with "wrong color Santa" - where green is fairly common, and purple a tad less so.

Third were "real photo" cards with holiday themes, which are actually a tad rare.

But those grotesque dancing skeletons (mainly French, I seem to recall) were super easy to sell.

 

Is there any online spots where postcard collectors congregate today? A lot of the postcard content I see on forums is on stamp focused forums and was wondering if there were any postcard forums.

 

Hold to light postcards are very cool I've only come across Christmas ones, would love to find a Halloween one.

 

And then you have those cards that were made for one holiday and adapted to another (at least they look that way to me). Here's an example of what looks like an Easter card, but labeled Christmas:

 

Was talking to an antique dealer over the weekend about holiday themed postcards and he said that in his personal collection he has 1000+ Halloween postcards that he has been hoarding since the 1970's. He said purchased the bulk of them at postcard/antique shows/flea markets decades ago when many sold in the $1-$5 range. That was a great investment wasn't it?

 

There are a couple of Facebook groups for Postcard collectors. One is for RPPC (Real Photo Post Cards) and the other one is Vintage Postcards. I just joined that group.