Of Postcards, Stamps, and Candy Bar Wrappers

Hi,

To continue a little with the topic of candy bar wrapper collecting - I came across an old newsletter in my collection, published by the candy-wrapper expert, Ray Broekel.  The title of the newsletter is:  CANDY BAR GAZEBO.  Just put the newsletter title and/or Broekel's name in a search and you will come up with lots of information.  Also search using 'box of rain candy bar.'  Great info here.  Mr. Browkel passed away at age 83 in 2006.

Other collectibles that take up less space, because you can store/display them in albums, are POSTCARDS, COINS, and of course, POSTAGE STAMPS. 

Postcards are great fun!  They are still relatively easy to find for purchase, either vintage or new.  I prefer the vintage ones, but am always on the lookout for any new ones in my collecting categories.  Of course, my largest category is CATS, but I also like GOLDFISH (kinda hard to find), and PEACOCKS, and more.  I also like vintage postcards of any bird which has REAL feather(s) attached to the card which forms the bird's body.  Another of my favorite categories is what I call ODD ANIMALS.  These are mostly vintage Real Photo PostCards (RPPCs) picturing animals with extra legs/feet or heads or whatever!  I just read news the other day of a 6-legged calf being born, but nowadays they don't publish postcards of the event!

Just think of the postcrds you could collect.  Just about anything is available, take your pick in the area of your interest.  Here are some suggestions:  vintage RPPCs of your hometown - any animal you like - RPPCs of lightning strikes - volcanoes - automobiles - ships - Christmas - Santas - other holidays - children - royalty - circus/sideshow - etc., etc.

To find a source of postcards, you could buy them by mail, right from the dealers, and/or you could attend any local postcard shows, which you could look for on the internet.  There used to be a nice magazine called Postcard Collector, but it stopped printing a few years ago.  Now the place to go is the website, http://www.postcardcollector.org/.  I haven't even finished checking it out, but what I have seen so far is very good.  Plenty of info on shows, dealers ads, supplies, and various article by authors about certain cards.  I am sure there are lots of other postcard websites, so don't be afraid to surf around.

Postcard collecting gets you doing research and learning more and more.  The same could be said of COIN collecting.  There are coin price guides to be had for info and prices, as well as magazines.  (Have you noticed there are 4 NEW pennies being minted this year?)

And how can I not mention postage stamp collecting?  I collected mostly cat stamps and made some really nice display albums, pairing up the picture on the stamp with a postcard of a similar design.  Depending on what you want to collect, there is a lot of help out there.  I haven't even checked the INTERNET for stamps since I stopped collecting my cat stamps a while back.  But you can go for it!

Well, I better wrap this up.  Please leave any comments or questions you may have at the bottom of this page, and I will see if I can help. 

Later.....