Back from BIPEX

Quite pleased with the show this year, the decline in attendance seem so have reversed as we were back to above 2004 levels ... I have always been certain that terrorist attrocities put a good number of people off visiting London last year. It was also good to see a few old faces make the trip.





A view of chairman Melanie Mordsley's stand and the impressive architecture of Lawrence Hall - not much evidence of the refurbishment that caused the nightmare of us having to rearrange dates!

postcard.co.uk PTA website

Ruth and I have been working hard on the new version of the PTA website. postcard.co.uk has been around now since 1996... one of the first sites I ever designed. This latest revamp is also much overdue, the main problem with the site has been keeping the information up to date and we will be doing this by integrating PTA membership details and fairs listings by database.

The site will also feature new information pages including Liz McKendrick's 'Beginners Guides' from Picture Postcard Monthly..

The launch of the new site is a good few weeks off yet... but should be worth the wait

BIPEX 2006

The 'show' is later this week and no matter how organised (we think) we are.. there never seems to be enough time to prepare. This years event takes place six weeks later than usual because of the renovation works at RHS Lawrence Hall . We're hopeful that moving it away from the August bank holiday week may tempt a few more visitors into London and it'll certainly be cooler than it has been at the august event in past years.

My role as publicity officer for the show has kept me busy over the last few weeks with last-minute advertising copy and press releases, but we're now concentrating on getting plenty of new postcard stock prepared. This year this will include some nice military items, a handful of rare Louis Wains, and photographic topographical cards for Surrey and Northamptonshire.

Some dealers still keep back stock for the Picture Postcard Show, but sadly not as many these days. We think this is our 17th time at BIPEX

Picture Postcard Show 2006. Lawrence Hall, Royal Horticultural Society, London SW1
11th - 14th October. details at....

http://www.postcard.co.uk/show.htm

Silvering of Real Photo Postcards

"Hello,wondering if you could give me some advice,I have a few black and white postcards dated around 1900 to 1914,and when turning them to the light there is a silver "shine" visable,it really spoils the postcard,is there any way of treating this?Any idea what causes it?Best Regards Ty Burton"

Hi,

What you are seeing is metallic silver that has migrated to the surface of the print from the photographic emulsion. Probably caused by chemical contamination or poor washing when the photo was made, it can also be caused by oxidation or prolonged exposure to light over the decades. It's best left alone as removing it can significantly lighten the shadow areas of the image it resides in and ruin the photograph.

If you really MUST remove it, you could try using a modern plastic eraser carefully and evenly on the surface, perhaps trying a small inconspicuous patch first. Different types of paper will react in different ways to this treatment so you really do need to be careful, but it can come in useful if you need to recover the detail so the image can be reproduced (scanned or copied) for example. In most cases the silvering does not affect the value of the postcard so it is better to leave it alone. regards Mike Day

- I've found it necessary to clean the silvering on cards on the odd occasion when retrieving the missing image detail is of much more importance than the actual value of the postcard. This can be done effectively but is VERY risky with the method described above and you can often be actually rubbing away the image.... and it's too late by the time you've realised!!