I have stash of about 500 postcards. I store them in an archiva box and made up some tab dividers to organize them alphabetically by subject matter, as follows.
Animals
Art
Built Environment
Churches, Castes, Lighthouses
Fowers & Gardens
Food
Holidays and Humor
Landscapes; Nature
Local
Maps
Monuments
Misc
People
Places
Space/Tech
Sports
Transportation
Things
Still, I sometimes have trouble finding cards, or finding the right category to place new cards. I probably need some new categories, but you can also get too granular. Happy to hear any of your random thoughts and practices on this matter. Thanks!
My main collection is City Views. My several thousand cards I file behind Alphabetical Index Dividers. Since some cities have numerous cards (e.g. Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Portland, etc.), I take a blank index tabbed card and write the city on the tab.
With both the smaller/medium sized cities, I keep all different cities by that letter behind the divider. Behind the individual cards, I have dupes in sleeves. That’s my system.
I just indexed mine as well. Some are general and some are specific to me, but maybe they’ll help:
Animals
Arthur Rackham
Birthday
Caravaggio
Cats
Chicago
Chicago Vintage
Christmas
Christmas Cats
Creepy RR
Creepy RR (Literature)
Feminist
Food
Harry Potter
Holidays RR (and then this section is organized by holiday)
Iconic
Kid friendly
Krampus
Mail
Maps
Random (things I can’t figure out a category for)
Seasons
Shakespeare
Staircases
Throwaways (cards I don’t like)
Tourists
True Crime
WBMP RR
Women
I have two different systems - one for cards that I will send and one for cards that I have received.
For cards to send, they are generally organized by subject, i.e. tourist, animals, art, etc. If a postcard is part of a postcard box or postcard book, I keep them in the box or book rather than separating them out because it’s just easier for me to find them that way.
For cards that I receive, they are all separated by the country that they come from. I haven’t yet gotten more granular than that.
Sending: For my USA postcards, I organize by State; all others I organize by country I bought them in. The postcard books and postcard boxes are in a drawer of their own.
Someday I would like to be so organized that I can find them by topic, but right now I just have to remember that I bought a cute kitten postcard in France, Colorado State had a lot of railroad postcards, I can always find a horse or cow postcard in Texas, and National Parks are in a box set.
Received: In a drawer by date received, except for the favorite and recent ones on display.
I love touristy cards (and maps) best, but also animal and plant cards.
I sort the touristy cards (also maps) by country, and within the country alphabetically. Austrian cards are also sorted by region alphabetically and within the region alphabetically.
The animals and plants are sorted alphabetically. The “fauna of Belarus” cards are sorted next to the Belarussian touristy views and that also goes for the fabulous Australian maxicards! Both alphabetically.
All other cards (Christmas, ads, art, …), that I don’t collect, are sorted alphabetically by country.
I have a few Edition Tausendschön cards and organize them by number (I only have some with numbers so far). I don’t collect them, but if I buy some to send out, I always have to buy one for myself also! !
I store the cards I purchased online by the name of the shop (acards, postallove …). Somehow I always remember which card came from which shop.
Local bought cards are stored by topic (like birthday, cars, Hamburg, Christmas …).
Cards TO SEND are in a 3" binder in postcard sheet protectors that hold 4-6 cards depending on their size. They are not in any particular order but I generally can flip through quickly to find what I am looking for. Boxes and books are stored in one drawer in my desk until I have room in the binder. I am only allowing myself to buy new cards if there are empty slots in the binder. This keeps the stash under control…sort of. Of course if I see I card I can’t resist…I buy it and it sits in the drawer and eventually makes it to the binder.
Cards RECEIVED are in boxes with tabs dividing into categories. So bears, coffee, country view cards (by country), Disney, postal related, etc. I’m always making subcategories and then the quandary comes when I have a bear on a bicycle…does it go in bears or bicycles? I usually ask my kid or my partner what the first thing they see on the card is and file it there.
!
