A window onto our distant past

CELEBRATION: Bruce Isted, Geoff Potts and Laurence Eagle at the 33rd NZ Postcard Society Conference in Whanganui.

It was fitting that the celebration last weekend of the 33rd annual conference of the New Zealand Postcard Society was held in Heritage House in St Hill Street.
The beautiful old building housed the exhibition and dealers from throughout New Zealand in an elegant and gracious style.
Earlier this year in March New Zealand historian and calligrapher Peter Gilderdale spoke on RNZ about his years researching New Zealanders' love affair with postcards.
He told presenter Wallace Chapman that it was a fascinating history.
" ... and one that will be lost if we don't take care to preserve it."
It was a view shared by dealers and buyers at conference this weekend.
Gilderdale had said that because you could only write six words on New Zealand's first postcards it wasn't surprising that those early postcards have been described as the Edwardian equivalent of Twitter.
Bruce Isted who has been a Whanganui Postman for 24 years is very proud of his vast postcard collection.
"I was inspired by my grandmother. I started collecting when I was a boy."
Mr Isted said it's wonderful to see dealers from all around the country at the conference and everyone so keen to be there.
"There's so much to talk about and enjoy."
A founder of the society in 1983 Geoff Potts describes the historical postcard as a "window on our past". Trading of postcards is very popular, he said.
"eBay has 10,000 cards with 2900 of them from New Zealand and TradeMe has 3000," Geoff said.
Geoff has been a collector for 40 years.
He said the celebration weekend had been a huge success, with more than 40 people coming in from all over New Zealand.
"They all stayed at the Grand Hotel next door and we had a great dinner together."
He said he was surprised at the number of people who had come along to the Sunday Society Fair day. Special guest Christchurch historian Laurence Eagle had wowed the conference with his collector's calendar taken from his personal heritage collection of early postcards.
The calendar is titled Fascinating Whanganui River with a limited edition of 50 printed.
The glossy calendar was presented to everyone at the conference, Mayor Annette Main, and 13 Whanganui City Councillors. He also presented one each to Steelform Wanganui rugby players after their Mitre 10 Heartland Championship game at Cooks Gardens.
Mr Eagle admitted he would have liked the calendars to have sold from commercial outlets in Whanganui but no one was interested. The prices of the old postcards range from a few dollars to hundreds of dollars. On Sunday there were collectors happily heads down looking through the boxes of dealer's cards on offer.
Geoff said the value of postcards often depended on what they mean to the individual.
"Millions of postcards were produced between the 1900 and the 1970s."
Geoff said postcards were the emails of their day.
"They were very popular with tourists as most people did not have their own cameras in the early 20th century."