Ephemera is a fancy word for the bits of flotsam and jetsam, mostly paper and meant to be transient in nature, that pass through our lives – think ticket stubs, playbills, trading cards and even old postcards.
In this case, especially old postcards.
John Meissner is on the hunt for a specific type of postcard and hopes to find them “in the wild” – perhaps hiding in old boxes, in the backs of closets or tucked away in attics.
Meissner runs the Sanborn Research Centre in Estes Park, Colorado. An avid postcard collector, Meissner is creating a checklist of real-photo postcards distributed by the South West Post Card Co. of Albuquerque in the 1940s and 1950s.
The Centre is still 200 postcards shy of a more than 650-postcard series known as the “P-series” from New Mexico and northeastern Arizona. Because of the way the series of photos were numbered, gaps in clusters of code numbers depicting a specific area has led the Centre to speculate that at least some of the postcards missing from their collection are likely rare postcards from the Four Corners area.
Meissner believes because these postcards are often photographs of actual buildings and scenes, they have historic value. Because some were produced in such limited numbers, they also have value as collectible rarities, difficult to nearly impossible to find on the open market and priced accordingly. Real photo postcards with a verifiable dated postmark are especially desirable.
To that end, Meissner is encouraging people in this area to go through their old shoe boxes of family memorabilia, inherited scrapbooks or assembled collections to check for old black and white postcards that clearly have a real photograph attached and are marked with a code of P and a number. While many (to most) times the cards may not have a great value, Meissner said “you never know if one will be found worth $500 or more.”
Meissner said his organization would be willing to extend offers in that range if discoverers of cards missing from the series are willing to part with them.
“The other possibility is to donate these treasures to a local museum or historical society so they can be preserved for future generations,” he said. He believes that the documentation of buildings and towns make the postcards valuable in terms of historical records. “Our institution is both qualified and willing to provide free appraisals of photo postcards from this era for tax purposes. Some are worth quite a bit more than the paper they were printed on,” he added.
For a checklist of the missing P-series cards or to inquire about specific or other old postcards, John Meissner may be contacted at srcep@mail.com. (Email address is correct, it is not a gmail.)
