Vintage QSL collection for sale from the Spark Museum in Bellingham

Holy Guacamole, Lots of those have 1927 on them. 91 years ago. Those are old. Pretty neat to see some stuff from the past. Thanks for sharing.

 

I appreciate the votes of confidence voiced above. If anyone doubts what I am trying to do, I encourage you to visit my website at www.oldqslcards.com and decide yourself what my motives are. I am retired and spend a lot of my time now working my QSL Card project. I sort, type, file, and all the organizing skills it takes to find a card once its stored and someone sees it listed online and wants a scan of the card to see it it belonged to their lost family member who used to be a ham. Sometimes it might be a daughter who grew up listening to her father in his ham radio room calling CQ.CQ. CQ for hours hoping to find that special overseas contact. These cards are special to me because they all represent a moment in time during our ham radio history. It always amazes me when I find two cards that are 75 years old, from the same ham mailed a few days apart, sent to difference locations and for some reason they both survived the elements of time and found there way into my collection. One might be old crumbling apart and faded so bad you can hardly read the dates and the other looks like it brand new from the box. Of course we all know that one was pinned on the wall of a radio shack for many years and the other was filed away in a shoe box for later reference. Regardless if you considered the monetary value of a card or not, they are all priceless to me. If you love our hobby and can appreciate the legacy the old operators left behind for us to discover in the little 4 x 7 QSL Card, you will understand my plea that no QSL Card should ever end up the landfills of the world. I do this because it needs to be done. I bear the expense of this project on my meager fixed income as a retired ham and always appreciate when someone sends me a donation to say thank you because they understand and appreciate what I do. If these cards in the collection above find there way into my collection, I will be proud to welcome them and give them a good home while they stay until someone from the past recognizes them and they find their way home from once they came.

Bob Green
W8JYZ
Old QSL Cards.com

 

You should do an auction

 

If the intent to to raise money and not keep the (unsorted) collection whole, may I offer this suggestion.

A package of 10 cards, from a specific year (say, 1929) could be sold for $10.

A package of 10 cards from a specific country, say the Japan, UK or elsewhere could be sold for $10.

A mixed package of 10 random, but all older than -say, 1940 - could sell for $5.

All would be plus postage.

The odds of selling all 10K for any kind of real money is, at best, a forlorn hope.

Good luck, you have something of value, but the true value will be all but impossible to determine....

 

Anyone who gets on EBay and types 'QSL card' will find an uncountable number of old cards. Basically, they are in the same category as old books-- dumpster fodder. Some of us have an interest in old cards and will pay the modest fees to prevent them from rotting, like W8JYZ and W7UUU. That's excellent

Cards as collections are generally worthless. What should be done is to go through them and find the cards from well known scientists and engineers, and sell those separately. In other words, 'part out the collection'.

I have QSL cards from W9GFZ and W8JK framed on my wall. It took some hunting to find them. And I was willing to pay the price.

The curator would have done well to have a ham post this OP. I am less sympathetic to those without a ham license.

 

Your suggested pricing is incompatible with most EBay offers. Maybe 100 cards for $5....

But generally the collection has no value as an asset to be sold.

73
Chip W1YW

 

EZ fix....just give them to Dave.

 

KG7VTO, Thanks for a good laugh this morning I needed that. Yes Dave seems quite interested. But I like the KL7KN
suggestion on how to sell the cards I would drop 10 or 20 bucks on QSL cards from the 1920's through the 50's and proudly display them in my Living room and Shack. So Bob if you are reading this I am ready to order my Vintage QSL cards. Good luck with the Project and 73's

 

Thank you Jim...

 

The market here is old people like myself, actually over 75. Like all transactions, they might luck into a unique buyer. But I suspect it will follow the path of so much that has tubed with price as the demographic aged and themselves 'downsized'.

At least with old books they can serve the purpose of acting as decoration in your local coffee shop shelves. To wit: my favorite thing to do is to say 'I'll take a latte and the third book on the second shelf'. A: 'I can only charge you for the coffee sir. Bring in a book and we can swap.'

It is telling that they want to sell these cards to spend money on a STEM exhibit. IOW the young people couldn't care less about a bunch of old postcards which don't even have pictures on them.

My cards now date back more than 52 years. I have them in sleek wooden boxes, over 10,000. They will be chucked (someday) : I have no expectations that they mean anything to anyone but me.

 

seems like a lot of rude remarks, I am quite disappointed in this.
the funds from the sale of these cards would be used to make new science exhibits to encourage children to love science.
people are putting down this collection without having even looking at all 10,000 of them.