Finding Postcard Fairs in the UK

I mentioned yesterday The Picture Postcard Show which opens in London tomorrow and lasts three days. Most postcard fairs are only one day affairs, although there are a few two-day fairs and some evening fairs. Whether they last one, two or three days postcard fairs are a great place to find postcards to illustrate your family history.

When it comes to finding out where postcard fairs are held there are two main places to look:

The Postcard Traders Association website

The Postcard Traders Association has a calendar of postcard fairs on their website. The good thing about this calendar is that you can click through and find out more information about the organiser, including contact details and possibly their website.

The main drawback with this list is that it doesn’t always get updated regularly, but it is a good starting place especially as a lot of the fairs take place on a regular basis. Also this doesn’t always feature some of the smaller fairs.

Picture Postcard Monthly

Picture Postcard Monthly magazine has a much fuller list of postcard fairs including some international ones (along with auctions and exhibitions). These usually cover the coming three months and also includes contact details for the organisers as well as indicating the number of postcard dealers likely to be attending.

As well as the list of fairs in Picture Postcard Monthly, it is also the main place where postcard fairs are advertised, as well everything else you would expect in a magazine such as news, letters and articles.

The Postcard Traders Association website has a page entitled How to Win at Fairs with advice to get the best out of your visit to a postcard fair. My own advice would be to set yourself a budget and stick to it, otherwise it could get very expensive!

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Picture Postcard Show 2011

The highlight of the postcard collecting calendar is the annual Picture Postcard Show, also known as BIPEX (British International Postcard Exhibition), which takes place this week, running from Thursday 1st September 2011 to Saturday 3rd September 2011.

The three-day show is held at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Lawrence Hall in Greycoat Street, London and is described as “the world’s most prestigious card show”. Full details including admission prices and opening times can be found on the Postcard Traders Association website.

The Picture Postcard Show is like a normal provincial postcard fair on steroids, with a greater diversity of postcard dealers in attendance, including many from overseas. This means a greater diversity of postcards and as the website says, “some of the best cards available today”.

Unfortunately it doesn’t look like I am going to be able to make it to this year’s show, but you can read about my previous visits here and here.

Copyright © 2011 John Gasson.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

SFHG Family and Local History Day

It has been a glorious day, the sun shone on Worthing, Sussex and much family and local history was to be found at Field Place in Durrington.

There were only a small selection of stands at the Sussex Family History Society’s Family and Local History Day, but it has to be remembered that it was only a small local event. There were several groups and organisations which are not usually to be found at family history fairs along, with some more familiar faces (see the SFHG website for more details).

Despite the glorious weather outside it appeared to have been well attended and the car park was already full by the time I arrived (on foot) about 11am. Naturally I headed straight for the two postcards dealers in attendance, but only came away with two postcards, one of which was only bought because it brought a smile to my face and for that reason alone deserved to be in my collection.

I didn’t really have time to attend any of the talks or hang around to see the miniature stream engines because I had left my wife shopping in Worthing and couldn’t afford to leave her alone too long. Although I am a fine one to talk because as well as the two postcards I came away with four new data CDs from the Parish Register Transcription Society.

Around lunchtime I headed back to central Worthing to catch up with my wife and have something to eat. The promenade at Worthing was pretty busy with people out enjoying the sunshine, although there were not many people actually on the beach and I don’t think we saw a single person brave enough to set foot in the water. It may have been warm and sunny on dry land, but I bet the water was still pretty cold.

Unplugged: Swapping the hills for postcards

I should have been out walking on the South Downs today, but the weather was so miserable that we (my wife and I) decided not to bother. The weather here was nothing compared to the weather recently experienced around the world, just some light drizzle and strong wind, but it just wasn’t worth getting cold and wet when there will be plenty of opportunities later in the year to get out on the hills and hopefully enjoy the experience.

Instead of heading for the hills I headed for Haywards Heath, West Sussex and the Postcard and Collectors Fair at Clair Hall. The main reason I wanted to go was to get some storage supplies to house my growing collection of postcards. I need to have a bit of a sort out of my existing postcard albums to make their contents more logical and consistent, and also provide a new home for those postcards that don’t fit into any of my main collections and any modern postcards that I buy during my travels.

I had already decided that a cardboard box (like the ones the dealers use to hold their stock) would probably be the best bet for the odd historic and modern postcards, so I bought one of these along with a supply of protective plastic sleeves in two different sizes and a few plastic dividers. Now I am ready to spend some time organising my collections.

Of course I couldn’t come away without any postcards, although as you can see in the image above I didn’t buy that many. The postcard I bought were quite a cross-section in both age and subject, but there were a couple of real gems in there as well, which I am really pleased with (and will no doubt be showing off in due course). Time to get my scanner going again!

Piling up the postcards at Shoreham

It has been a while since I have been to postcard fair (although I have still been buying postcards, mostly on eBay but also elsewhere), so it was nice to get chance to visit the Postcard and Collectors Fair at The Shoreham Centre, Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.

I was quite surprised to find the Shoreham Centre packed with people (both collectors and dealers) when I arrived, on previous visits I have found it a lot quieter, so it was good to see so many people. The Shoreham Centre is not particularly large but it is pretty convenient for me to get to, in fact a couple of years ago I walked there, it took me about four hours but I might try that again later in the year when the weather is better.

Results were mixed, as you can see from the pile of cards above there was quite a mixed bag, nine cards in all, all of which were Sussex. Three nice West Dean ones for my collection, another Beachy Head lighthouse (bought for the publisher rather than the subject) and the rest had family associations and were absolute bargains which I couldn’t resist. Expect to see some of these on this blog in the coming weeks and months.

For those interested in attending future fairs, they are organised by Beacon Fairs, and the dates for the rest of 2011 are:

• Saturday 16th April 2011
• Sunday 19th June 2011
• Saturday 15th October 2011