Postcard collecting has been a popular American pastime since the hobby's Golden Age more than a hundred years ago. For today's collector, postcards offer historic photography, snapshots of pop culture and everyday life, colorful works by famous artists--and the thrill of the hunt as you build your collection.

At long last there's a full-color overview and in-depth guide to this fascinating hobby. The 432-page Guide Book of Collectible Postcards is a complete one-stop resource for newcomers and experienced collectors alike. It includes:

• More than 1,500 illustrations
• Real Photo Postcards (RPPCs), linens, chromes, signed artist cards, sets and series, hand-colored cards, error cards, composites, mechanicals and novelties, and more
• Christmas, Halloween, comics, and other popular categories
• famous artists like Charles Dana Gibson, Winsor McCay, Alphonse Mucha, and many others
• history of the hobby and postcard production methods
• advice for smart buying and collecting
• valuation charts for hundreds of card types
• grading instructions
• check lists for sets and series, to keep track of your collections
• high-resolution images of more than 1,300 example postcards
• a comprehensive appendix describing more than 2,000 historic postcard manufacturers and distributors
• extensive indexes for further research

A postcard collection takes you on a unique trip into the past. Inside this book, you'll find cards of high society and lowbrow humor, natural disasters, social, political, and religious movements, popular artists' illustrations, newspaper comics, circus animals, early movie stars, athletes, planes, trains, automobiles, and the corner general store--and much more!

Authors Q. David Bowers and Mary L. Martin share decades of experience in buying, selling, and collecting. They guide you from the earliest postcards of the 1870s to the Golden Age of the 1890s through the Great War, and to the modern chrome postcards found on store racks today.

"Together, Mary Martin and Dave Bowers have raised the bar for the serious recognition of the postcard as one of the most important forms of mass media in history."--from the foreword by Leonard A. Lauder