[Janet MacD]

Many postcard dealers will have items of interest to philatelists and items of interest to collectors of paper ephemera: bills of exchange (cheques and bank drafts) with revenue stamps, tobacco cards, tea cards, early greeting cards, reference material … especially if they have acquired collections from estates or downsizers. If you are interested in advertising, all dealers will have advertisements on postcards and covers. Some will have vintage magazine ads. They also bring the things they don’t want to keep in their own inventory to shows to sell to other dealers. Postcards themselves are a wonderful source of stamps and postal history, auxiliary markings, and slogan cancels.

If there are specific things you would like to see, you can send an email to dealers asking them to bring those items. At a show, if you don’t see things you are interested in, you can ask if they have anything else behind the table. Many dealers have boxes filled with inexpensive items that you can sift through.

Last year I bought a lovely postcard from a postcard dealer because it had a U.S. Precancel stamp from Watertown NY that had been used in place of a Revenue stamp for postage due. An unexpected find in the Frontenac county box …

I think the lines that divide one type of paper collectible from another are getting very blurred. Things that interest you can pop up anywhere!