IPM Catalogue Of Picture Postcards 1981

IPM Catalogue of Picture Postcards 1981 by J. H. D. Smith, published in 1981, is a gloriously specialised reference book from the golden age of collecting things properly: before online databases, before instant image searches, and before somebody could list a battered postcard for £85 simply because they had typed “RARE” in capital letters.

This is a catalogue for people who understood that a picture postcard is never just a picture postcard.

There is the publisher.

The series.

The subject.

The locality.

The date.

The printing method.

The photographer.

The condition.

The postmark.

The message.

The stamp.

And, crucially, whether someone in 1909 decided to glue it permanently into an album using an adhesive apparently formulated for shipbuilding.

J. H. D. Smith’s catalogue belongs to that wonderfully methodical world of postcard collecting where knowledge mattered because information was not instantly available.

Collectors learned things.

They recognised publishers.

They remembered series numbers.

They knew which views were common and which were elusive.

And they could spend twenty minutes discussing the back of a postcard before reluctantly turning it over to look at the picture.

The IPM Catalogue of Picture Postcards 1981 provided structure for this enthusiasm, helping collectors identify, classify and make sense of a field in which literally millions of cards had been produced on subjects ranging from seaside resorts and railway stations to churches, ships, comic scenes, disasters, royal occasions and streets that have since been replaced by roundabouts.

That is part of the fascination.

Postcards were originally disposable communications.

“Having lovely time.”

“Weather poor.”

“Train arrives 4.20.”

Entire family histories occasionally compressed into seven words and a stamp.

Nobody necessarily expected the card to survive for a century.

Collectors had other ideas.

By 1981, the postcard hobby was already mature enough to require serious catalogues like this one, which makes the book itself an interesting record of the collecting world of the period.

This was the era of postcard fairs, dealer lists, classified advertisements, postal orders and handwritten correspondence between people who knew exactly what they were looking for.

No scrolling.

No algorithm.

No alert saying “12 new listings match your search”.

If you wanted a particular card of a railway station in Gloucestershire, you could spend several years looking for it.

And enjoy the process.

Modern technology has made collecting easier in many ways.

It has also removed some of the mystery.

There was a particular pleasure in opening a shoebox at a fair and discovering something unexpected among five hundred pictures of unidentified churches.

A catalogue like this was part of the equipment.

Reference book in one hand.

Postcard in the other.

Slightly worried dealer watching from across the table.

There is also an inevitable irony in old collectors’ catalogues.

They begin life documenting collectable objects.

Then time passes.

The catalogue itself becomes collectable.

So here we now have a vintage book from 1981 devoted to even older pieces of printed ephemera, proving once again that if you leave almost anything alone for long enough, somebody will eventually want to catalogue it.

Possibly with prices.

For postcard collectors, ephemera enthusiasts, local historians and anyone interested in the social history of collecting, IPM Catalogue of Picture Postcards 1981 is a charming and useful survivor.

It is also ideal for anyone who enjoys very specific books produced without the slightest concern that the general public might not understand why the subject matters.

The general public was not invited.

Condition: Good. A sound used copy with normal signs of age and handling. Published in 1981, it has now been around long enough to qualify for inclusion in somebody else’s catalogue.

ISBN: 0950421650.

A wonderfully niche reference work from the pre-internet postcard world, when collectors relied on knowledge, patience, paper catalogues and an alarming ability to recognise seaside promenades from extremely small photographs.

Sold by Crappy Old Books — where even the books about old postcards have become old enough to be interesting.

Keep browsing: See more Hobbies books Other books by JHD Smith