Featured Help with card album please

Hi, I found this album at the flea market and am wondering if it is worth trying to sell. I would like to put it up on eBay but the condition of the spine and some of the cards (where they rubbed against each other) is not good.

I am posting some photos to give an idea of what is inside, there are a total of 150 cards pasted into the album.

Any thoughts or advice would be very much appreciated



This looks like an original etching:

 

I wouldn't sell it but if I did it would go as is.
I LOVE it!

 

I love it too, and there are some really nice old cards. But they are all glued in and I don't know if that presents a problem

 

Have they glued them to both sides of the pages or are the backs of the pages blank?

 

The backs seem to be blank. Most of the cards are 1 page, some are multiple and the backs are glued so I can open them. Does this make sense?

 

Yes. I thought they were postcards at first.

 

If the backs are blank with no cards stuck to them they will fetch a bit more because some people like to re mount them or use them for Decoupage projects.

 

Are the cards all blank? It looks like a salesman's sample book in which case you'd want to leave it as is.

 

Hi Bev, I don't think a salesman's sample, I think someone just collected cards they liked. It has the feeling of an amateur collection. Since they are all glued down unless I start soaking them off the pages there is no way for me to be positive there is nothing written on the backs.

If you want to look at it I can bring it by for you to see

 

These trade card and scrap albums were popular during Victorian times. They are quite collectible and used to bring good money on ebay (have not looked lately, since mine was sold there many years ago). Contents and subject matter would determine price.

Those that buy these albums to sell the items individually soak them off the page. Here is a link explaining that:
http://www.ebay.com/gds/How-to-Succ...rapbooks-/10000000006898799/g.html?rmvSB=true

But.....you may already know this.

 

No, no, no. DO not bring it by. You know what will happen. I'll want to keep it.

 

Whoever put it together had a nice eye for composition and put like cards together in a pleasing manner.

I would sell as a whole.

 

I am the side of selling as it is presented; there are some buyers who purchase these collections to take each/certain cards out and collect or sell individually. Then the other side, which enjoys 'the story' in which each page was carefully presented. And just the pages you have shown, were put together carefully by the original owner. A nice presentation album.

 

That would be how I would leave it.
I have a few old scrapbooks packed away that I've picked up here and there but I haven't seen any in a long time now.
Every such book I see now is stripped out with the loss of all the memories that went into it.

 

OK Bev, I won't torture you

Thank you everyone! I searched everything I could think of on eBay and couldn't find comparables. Now, with your help, I searched for "Victorian Trade Cards Album" I found a whole bunch and have a better idea of how to list this. I was searching for "greeting cards" since they are Christmas and Easter cards etc., that is what slipped me up!

 

Hi, I didn't realize that these are trade cards and not greeting cards. Or maybe a mix, where you have both in the album? Trade cards have advertising on the back, and sometimes on the front, too, promoting a certain business or product, or both. And I understand that there are people who collect those. They are different from greeting cards, which tend to be more the holiday cards and other cards that one would send to one's friends and family.

Although... I just looked at the link that Charlotte posted to the eBay guide, and the author of that does not make the same distinction that I just did.

 

This article from Collector's Weekly uses the definition of "trade cards" that I have always heard:

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/cards/trade-cards

And here is a website about them:
http://www.tradecards.com/

 

Thank you Figtree3

I think I will call it Victorian Trade Card Greeting Card Album. But first I will try to peek at some of the backs (if the glue will let me) to make sure some do have advertising on them.

 

OMG! I put it up and within 5 minutes it was sold!!!

Thank you everyone for your help

 

Congratulations!