Looking for Collectible Postcards

I’ve found that the best place to find collectible postcards is at art auctions. I was at an art auction in Eastlake, Ohio looking for stained glass and found them auctioning a lot of vintage collectible postcards. I bought the lot at the art auction and it contained almost three thousand beautiful collectible postcards.

About thirty percent of the collectible postcards were pre-linen. These are postcards that were all made before 1930. The linen collectible postcards were made from 1930 to 1945 and the lot I won at the art auction had thirty percent linen cards as well.

Forty percent of the lot I won at the art auction was for early chrome collectible postcards. Most of them were from the fifties and sixties. There were also collectible postcards from the British museum series from the seventies.

The collectible postcards that are my favorite are all turn of the century and were sent for holidays. Valentine’s Day collectible postcards from the early 1900s are very romantic. The Christmas postcards have some really nice artwork. I was really fortunate with the purchase at the art auction because the assortment was so varied.

My collection of collectible postcards contains many different themes. I like the non-US card. I found an art auction that had a shoebox full of these postcards and they were from places like Bermuda, Zurich, Rio de Janeiro, Dresden, Germany, Ireland and even Istanbul. I had never owned a collectible postcard from Niger before that art auction.

People who do not collect vintage collectible postcards just don’t understand their value. They are usually not even mentioned as being part of an art auction. I go to art auctions every other weekend on the off chance that there will be collectible postcards on the auction block.

I am always so pleased when I find linen ere collectible postcards at an art auction. The auctioneer at most art auctions does not even announce the lot as linen postcards; he usually just announces it as vintage or old collectible postcards. His lack of knowledge of the subject almost always works to my advantage.

I have various collections of collectible postcards within the main collection. I tried for awhile to complete a set of state views in all linen era postcards. I can’t even count how many art auctions I attended before I even had thirty of the forty eight states. I know that I finally tired of the pursuit and have just put it on the back burner.

The holiday collectible postcards go to collectors of more than just postcards. I’ve seen people buy holiday collectible postcards at an art auction just to frame and decorate with them during certain holidays. I actually found five really nice vintage Christmas collectible postcards at an art auction and had them framed for my mother as a Christmas gift.

I went to an art auction and estate sale of a man whose grandfather had been a colonel army officer. The collectible postcards that I found there were fantastic. The officer had amassed 353 different postcards from India. It was amazing. They had been tucked into an album and never used and were in perfect condition.

For awhile, I thought that I wanted to collect postcards from soldiers in WWI. I found a two hundred piece lot of this type of collectible postcards at an art auction in New Haven. The mix of cards was British, French and German. It was interesting because some of the collectible postcards were censored. I’ve never seen censored collectible postcards before.

The most I’ve ever spent on collectible postcards at an art auction was $530 for four postcards. They were all from 1904 and they depicted automobile racing. They were in pristine condition. I doubt that I will ever find any more even remotely like this the rest of my life. They were exceptional.

The lot of collectible postcards I found last weekend was really fun to look through. The art auction had a lot of things from a family that had emigrated here from Serbia. The postcards were all from either Serbia or Belgrade. This was a good lot and it went for the opening bid.

Art Auctions: Early American Art

There are many very good examples of what you could call early American artwork that has survived to this day, and as time passes to create particular movements in style throughout the world, fundamental ideas change with a variation in locale and timeframe when it comes to the individual artists and their brilliant visions. Each artist certainly contributing something to the overall picture of the world as it shapes and changes around them, it takes an artistic will strong enough to transcend any particular era to convey the feeling of the period in such a condensed format, and the various forms that this artwork can take is numerous.

There are many styles and mediums from which to choose your vintage piece of artwork, and when you do the adequate amount of research on the subject, then you will be better prepared to find that ideal painting or work by an artist that you can relate easier to. With early American artwork, it can be a much shorter time to find and acquire a print of the piece that you would wish to own, and this can also be a more cost effective way of getting those works that can best be appreciated by your tastes in artwork and artist.

Early American art runs the spectrum from Native American art to the modernist painters and artists we can see presently, and their artwork can all be summed up under the category of early American art, creating a totally unique perspective on the American landscape. When you wish to see a museum-quality piece in your own living room, there can be multiple ways to acquire the ideal artwork you find, and not all of them have to cost an arm or a leg. If you think that the buying experience has to be an expensive one, then you are sorely mistaken, but any museum piece can be considered priceless in some hands.

There are various ways to deal with finding the bargain that suits your needs, and it does not always affect you to find a print and put a frame around it, the worth of many prints can be a way to bypass the expense of trying to buy one of these improbably affordable pieces. If you happen to be cautious about buying a piece of questionable value, then perhaps purchasing an art print of such works can make it more worthwhile, and especially if you find yourself to be a novice in the art scene. There are many places where you would be able to find printed reproductions, and can have them bought right on the premises of the location.

There is still much American artwork being produced that is quite relevant a reflection on the state of affairs as they stand throughout time, and no matter the period, there is certainly a way to find an example of what you are looking for whether the artist happens to be involved in a particular movement or otherwise at the time. There are many various definitions that American art falls under depending upon when the work was made, though only after the nineteenth century did movements begin to be started in America, and it was then that artists like Jackson Pollack were given the freedom to express themselves.

This lead to the outgrowth of the Abstract Expressionist movement in art, came up out of the colliding of influences between Ashcan artwork and the modernists from Europe like the Cubists and abstract painters, and appeared in the years after World War II. Within the mindset of this movement, the abandoning of formal composition gave way to arrangements that concentrated on space and color to represent the physical act of painting on the canvas, and created works based around instinct instead of representation of real objects. These works would eventually affect the works of pop art that would come to prominence later in the century.

Art Auctions for Drawings

Art auctions for drawings are categorized into antique, modern and contemporary. Antique drawings are any drawings that were produced before 1900. Modern drawings have to have been created between 1900 and 1949. Contemporary drawings are drawings that were created from 1950 until the present.

There are a lot of contemporary drawings listed in art auctions that never get a bidder. There are many reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that the starting bid is set so high that it discourages interest. There was an art auction for a drawing that was created in 2000 that depicted James Dean welcoming Elvis Presley into heaven. The starting price for this art auction was twelve million dollars. I am not surprised that it did not get a bidder.

I found another pen and ink drawing in an art auction that was listed for a lot more than it was worth. The original listing started at $825,000.00 and when it didn’t sell, the artist lowered the price to $545,000.00. He offers the copywrite to the design, which he thinks would translate well for prints, posters or greeting cards.

There was an art auction for a drawing that was purchased in 1971 London that did very well. The seller of the drawing inherited it from his grandfather, who was the original owner. He started the bidding at a reasonable $599.00 and the drawing ultimate sold in the art auction for over twelve thousand dollars. He did a great job describing and picturing the drawing.

Antique drawings in art auctions can garner a lot of interest. I saw a drawing of two men in the nude that was drawn in the 1800’s go for more than eleven thousand dollars. This drawing was pen and ink and had a brown wash and traces of charcoal on lines of black pencil.

I was very taken with an antique drawing made by Sir Francis Grant in 1832. The drawing in the art auction was of a woman and her daughter in Scotland. The drawing was a signed original and sold for two thousand dollars. I hope that it ends up framed and hanging in a collection of similar pieces. It was really nice.

Another reason that art auctions for drawings don’t sell is that they are listed in the wrong categories. I found several contemporary pieces that were listed in the antique category. With so much competition in art auctions, it is important to make sure every detail is noticed.

Modern drawings are by far my favorite art auctions. I wanted the stamped Degas I saw up for auction, but it was way out of my budget. I’m sure that the person that ended up with the highest bid at the art auction will love and treasure it.

Well known artist’s drawings can fetch a lot of money in online art auctions. If the title of the art auction contains the words original Picasso, for example, it is sure to go over two thousand dollars. If the item is signed, it can go for much more.

I really liked a drawing I found in an art auction from an artist that I was unfamiliar with. The artist was Patrick Caulfield and he titled his drawing Grapes. He used colored pencils on black paper in the late 1980’s. This drawing sold for the opening bid, $4,250.00.

Art Auctions: Grotesque Art

That there is an overwhelming number of pieces that represent this particular grouping of artwork seems false to believe, but this is happens to be on the rise as we get further into the new millennium, and realize the shedding of our culture’s skins time and again. Grotesque artwork pulls us back into the human forms we have been born into, and truly seems to give us a reaffirming sense of who we are. There are many artists, though part of other artistic movements, which have proven to fill the criteria for this grouping of concepts.

Grotesque art from the past ranges from varying degrees of mood and theme, but always seem to draw from those factors that are widely considered by most to be taboo or dark in nature, adhering to some of the most brutal and thought-provoking events in history. All these things have come together to create a body of works that jump between particular eras, but seem interrelated in the subject matter that they portray, creating works that define the morbid attentions that we seem to take from our history as a whole.

Through the works of such famed artists as Picasso and Goya, the light within the darkness of our own human condition can be revealed to us, and these reflections of our culture are seeds to the future as the culture has evolved. Many differing movements each seem to donate their own unique spin when considering these peculiar models of work, and the theme of horror and terror can be interpreted by my different people many differing ways, no matter whether today or some era further behind us. For some cultures, it is a way to evacuate fear, and express it without harm to one’s emotional health.

Though morals may seem to be too constrictive today, there are still points where society converges on points that break past the emotional barriers that many people construct, and this art is very much a mirror for evoking an honest reaction at the reflection that stares back, a response that cannot be replicated any other way. These images more than affect the rest of the present day world, as can be heard in many recent dimensions in music, and related themes can even be found in today’s popular attraction towards the horror films and novels which sell more than ever now.

It is when you consider the works of artists possessed by a certain vision, one that evokes pain as well as passion along with the other contradictions in life, and it is then that historic works like those of Hieronymus Bosch and even modern designs of H. R. Giger can be learned in equal measure of value. Their predilections towards breaking the taboos enforced by their surroundings, has helped to guide us steps into the future of our own acceptance and appreciation for our world, and the layers of depth can be revealed when one takes the time to find those elements that appeal to the sense of artistic worth.

To take control of your knowledge of this kind of artwork can better equip you for finding the particular works that you would be most enthusiastic to own, and though most of the more famous works can only be bought as prints, there are still many artists today who practice a style that intrudes upon that thin layer on the surface that reveals the most visceral layers underneath that. When looking for the right work to suit your tastes, a good deal respect must be given to those that attempt to translate their thoughts onto canvas, and you can come to better understand this category of art when approached with an open mind.

Today, some works by the artist Joe Coleman have more recently pushed the boundaries further back, and smashed a lot of preconceptions of artistic will. His approach includes the use a single horse hair brush, and detailing so fine that many layers can be found after viewing the paintings and prints dozens of times over, creating a new perspective on it with each consecutive viewing of the work. It is these layered degrees that artists strive for time and again to reveal insights into the nature of what it is to be human, and allow us to get in touch with sides of ourselves previously unknown or held back.