Dating and Storing Old Postcards Behind the Bar
A postcard on a bar wall is a document, not a poster. You date it by reading the paper, the printing process, the publisher's mark and the postal markings, and you keep the rest of the collection in the dark because light fades the inks faster than handling ever will. The hobby that supplies these cards is called filokartie, the collecting of old postcards, and it splits into branches by subject, period and country.
What is filokartie and what are its branches?
Filokartie is the collecting of postcards, and the term covers both the objects and the research around them. The branches follow the cards themselves. Topographical cards show towns, streets and buildings, and they are the branch most useful to local historians and genealogists. Genre cards show scenes of daily life, work, fairs and interiors. Portrait cards, artist-signed cards, advertising cards, military cards, railway and shipping cards, and holiday resort cards each have their own buyers and their own price levels. That thread continues in The painted tray under the bottles.
A second split runs by period. Cards from roughly 1890 to 1918 are the classic field, printed by lithography or collotype on heavy stock. The interwar years bring phototype and rotogravure, sharper images and thinner paper. Postwar cards are usually offset and much more common, which keeps prices low and makes them good practice material. A longer note on the same subject sits in The radio behind the bar: low-power stations and the nights they carry.
A third split runs by postal history. Some collectors want the card, some want the stamp, some want the postmark and the route. A card mailed from a small village on a specific date can be worth more to a postal historian than the same image mailed from a city. If you are new to the field, the vocabulary and the branch structure are set out clearly in Czech collector circles, and a Czech auction catalogue such as this one for old postcards and their collecting branches shows how lots are grouped by subject and period rather than by price.
How do you date a postcard?
Start with the back. A divided back, with a vertical line separating message from address, points to 1907 or later in most of Europe. An undivided back points earlier. A white border around the image usually means the 1920s or 1930s. A glossy surface with a fine dot pattern under a loupe means offset printing, which is generally postwar.
Then read the front for the publisher. Names, numbers and small logos are printed along the bottom edge or in a corner, and they are the most reliable single clue. A publisher's number that runs into the tens of thousands suggests a large house with a long catalogue, which usually means a later date than a small local printer with a three-digit number.
Paper gives you a second check. Hold the card up to a lamp: a watermark or a visible fibre pattern belongs to the earlier era. Card that feels like modern greeting-card stock and bends without cracking is almost certainly late. Postmarks, when present, are the hardest evidence, but they date the mailing, not the printing, and a card can sit in a shop for years before it is sent.
How do you read a printer's mark?
A printer's mark is a small block of text, often no more than four or five millimetres high, printed at the edge of the image or on the back. It usually contains a name, a town and sometimes a street address or a series number. Read it in three passes.
First, the name. A personal name with no company suffix points to a small workshop, often a photographer who published his own views. A name followed by a company form points to a larger operation with a catalogue.
Second, the town. A card of a village printed in the nearest large town tells you the card was made for local sale, not for a national series. A card of a Czech town printed in Dresden, Vienna or Berlin tells you it came from a large export house, and those houses often reprinted the same image for years.
Third, the series number. Publishers issued cards in numbered series, and the number lets you place the card within that publisher's output if you can find a dated example from the same series. A single dated card in a series anchors the whole run.
Watch for the difference between a printer and a publisher. The printer made the sheet; the publisher sold it. Both marks can appear on one card, and the publisher's name is usually the one that matters for dating.
How do you start collecting old postcards?
Pick one place. A single street, a single village, a single railway line. A narrow theme makes every purchase a decision rather than a gamble, and it keeps a beginner from buying boxes of unsorted stock that never get catalogued.
Buy in small lots first. Ten cards of one town teach you more about paper, printing and condition than one expensive card of a famous view. Handle them, sort them, and note what you paid. Condition matters more than most beginners expect: a crease across the image, a missing corner or heavy foxing on the back can cut value by half or more, while a clean card of an ordinary view holds its place in a collection.
Learn the local market before you buy abroad. In Czech towns, the burza, a collectors' fair or swap meet, is where the trade actually happens, and prices there are set by collectors rather than by dealers. Auction catalogues are useful for the same reason: they show what sold, with condition notes, rather than what someone hopes to get.
How do you set a budget for collecting postcards?
Set two numbers, not one. The first is a monthly ceiling you will not cross, and the second is a single-card limit, the most you will pay for one item without sleeping on it. A workable starting pair is a monthly ceiling equal to one evening out and a single-card limit of a tenth of that. The point is not the amount, it is that both numbers exist before you walk into a fair.
Then split the monthly figure. Put most of it into cheap lots that build your reference base, and hold a small reserve for the one card that fits your theme and is genuinely scarce. Keep a written list of what you are looking for, with a maximum price next to each entry. A list turns a fair from a browsing exercise into a shopping trip, and it stops you from paying for a card you already own in better condition.
Track what you spend in the same notebook where you record the printer's marks. After a year you will know which branch of the hobby is actually costing you money, and that is the branch to narrow.
How do you store a collection away from light?
Light is the main enemy, and it works slowly. Ultraviolet fades the inks and yellows the paper, and a card on a bar wall in daylight will lose colour within a few years. Keep display to a small rotating group and store the rest closed.
Use sleeves made of inert plastic, not PVC. PVC sleeves release plasticiser over time and will stain the card surface permanently. Polyester or polypropylene sleeves are the safe choice. Store cards upright in a rigid box, not stacked flat under weight, and keep the box in a room with stable temperature and low humidity. A cupboard away from a radiator and away from an outside wall is better than a shelf above the bar.
For the cards you do display, frame them with an acid-free mount and UV-filtering glass, and hang them out of direct sun. Rotate the display every few months so no single card takes the full exposure. If a card is valuable, scan it and display the print.
Label as you store. Write the town, the publisher, the printer's mark, the date you assigned and the price on a slip of paper that stays with the card, never on the card itself. A collection with labels is a research archive; a collection without them is a pile of pictures, and the difference shows up the first time you try to date a card you bought two years ago.
Filed under Beer culture. Published September 15, 2026.