postcard.co.uk

My postcard collection includes a few original photographs, such as those issued by press bureaux to newspapers in 1915. IIRC I paid about £15 each for these. I've seen some of the same images reproduced on postcards that sell for £8-15. (I've also seen later press photos listed at £100+ each.)

Currently an album of 34 original photographs of 1910 is listed on eBay with a starting price of £175. A couple of the photos show the same scene as on PCs that dealers might ask £25-30 each. (So similar were they that I had to check very carefully with my own copies of the cards.)

Had those 34 photos been postcards they would command a price of around £600. But they are almost certainly unique.

I'm not seeking advice on what I should do or the price I should pay, but would be interested in others' general comments on the respective values of cards and photos.

Well, I won the album, paying about 55% of what I would have expected to pay for the pics had they been postcards My winning bid was 77p more than the next-highest! (I'd entered some random figures for the pence.) Lucky!

Though my musings have attracted no replies, I might as well complete this thread by noting the very high prices asked on eBay for "engravings" or "antique photographs" that are merely pages or clippings from a newspaper or magazine such as the Illustrated London News. I've just searched for one of my collecting sub-themes and there are some not unreasonable prices of £8 to £15, comparable to what one might pay for a postcard of the same scene, but also some very high ones of £50-60 (where a comparable card might cost £20).

And I'm not keen on the idea of a publication (unless it's badly damaged) being cut up.