I’m BACK – Postcards – Sunset and Lily Pond

Spent a bit of time listing like crazy on ebay – they had this marvelous “sale” and listing fees were reduced for a few days down to ONE cent for auctions starting less than $1. Postcard city! I was able to work practically non-stop and get over 300 ready for auction. Unfortunately so did other people and the buyers had many choices at marvelous prices. The sales were not nearly as good as I was expecting.

Next step is getting the right postcard to the right buyer. Not the most fun chore. I had not been careful enough with organization when listing the cards so it took much longer for this part of the job. Next to the last task is the trip to the Post Office and finally spreadsheet upkeep. It was a definite learning experience.

In the midst of all this the cat developed some eye problems and a trip to the vet for eyedrops (all better now) and then human medical care for the cat’s person. I knew better, but in trying to help the vet tech my own cat bit me. I thought he just nipped me but the vet tech said, “Uh, I think he got you – you’re bleeding on the table.” Sure enough, two nice puncture wounds on my finger. Glad my tetanus was up to date…

Sis had a big bunch of postcards for me to list on ebay and I’ve had fun sorting through them and selecting the next batches for ebay. I thought I would share some of my favorites with you:

“A Charming Lilly Pool in the Heart of Florida”

Makes me want to pull out the old picnic basket and garden hat… And it is ebay item 150235763365 if you want to take a closer look. See my other postcards by clicking on “See seller’s other items” or pause to look at the scrolling items within the brown frame.

My favorite cards all have a theme – water! And I can hardly resist water with reflections – in the card above you can see bits of the sky and clouds..

And in the sunset below, the colors of the sky

“Evening Shadows in Florida” Lovely title! and the picture above is the one I posted on ebay. I also enjoy learning Photoshop Elements and will “play with” images to see what they may have looked like new and without fading, like this one below:

Now I like the photoshop version better – it really brought back the reds and blues and other colors faded over time and removed the dinginess.

Since I want the customer to receive cards that look as much like the image they see on the screen as possible, I save the photoshop play for my own fun.

Thanks for checking back to see what is new at Dustbunnys.

Postcarding – At Eventide, Florida

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time the last couple of days putting more cards up on ebay. One of my favorites is this one.

I try to limit the cards in my personal collection to a couple of topical areas. One I enjoy is the beautiful scenes like this one. It is so calm and quiet and I almost feel as if I am there. (ebay item #290208104499). It is listed because You Can’t Keep EVERYTHING and I hope it goes to a good home.

This is another one – The postcards from the turn of the century (19th to 20th…) of industrial or business scenes are so fascinating. This one is loading wheat on a ship in Portland, OR with Automatic Conveyors (ebay item #290207827572). There are still a few men standing around and someone had to put the wheat on and off they conveyor, so the automation is not quite as complete as automation is in 2008. I love the glimpse into how things were done in the past. Ingenuity and invention are thrilling!

You can really tell the quality of the cardstock, coloring, and printing on these two. They even feel important. I’ve been learning about some of the different publishers, and the ship card is published by Edward Mitchell of San Francisco. From what I understand, German publishers essentially owned the market and collectors far preferred them to the American printed cards. Mr. Mitchell was able to show that American printers could challenge the German printers in quality and desirable subject matter.

Most of the other cards I’ve been listing were attractions – most closed, sold, and paved over now, but still fun to remember or wonder about. I’ll be writing more about them in the future. You can go to one of the item numbers I’ve listed and click on “see seller’s other items”, or about an inch or two further down the page look at the scrolling slide show of all the cards at auction.

Dustbunny