Postcards from the past set to be sold

Hundreds of postcards depicting life in Bingham and its surrounding villages at the beginning of the 20th Century are due to be sold at auction next week.

The 365 postcards, which will be sold as a single album at the Royal British Legion, Nottingham Road, Gotham, have been collected over 20 years by a couple from Screveton.

Mr and Mrs Roger Phipps said they had enjoyed collecting the postcards, but felt they had reached the point where it was time to let someone else take over.

Mrs Sandra Phipps said: “They are an amazing record of Bingham and the other areas through the ages from Victorian and Edwardian eras and some of them are quite rare.

“It has just been a passion of ours. We must have trawled through thousands of postcards.”

The collection is thought to be worth up to £2,000 and features postcards from Bingham, Aslockton, Gunthorpe, Car Colston, Orston, East Bridgford, Elston and Flintham.

Mr and Mrs Phipps have travelled to numerous postcard fairs, including ones as far as York, and said as the years went on, the postcards became increasingly difficult to find.

Mrs Phipps said in the early days they could pick up around six at a time whereas now they were likely only to find one or two at a fair.

“The most we have ever paid for a single postcard was £60 and the least we have ever paid was around £1.50,” she said.

The couple often used to travel to the locations on the postcard to take photographs of how it looked today, noting the changes in the landscape and comparing the buildings.

“It has been a very enjoyable hobby as we love history and the history of the area,” said Mrs Phipps.

She hopes to be there when the album is auctioned by T. Vennett-Smith, one of Britain’s leading professional auction houses for specialist collector sales.

Mr Trevor Vennet-Smith said this was the best collection he had seen of South West Nottinghamshire, which was a very difficult area to find postcards, unlike North Nottinghamshire, which was more common.

“You must remember that at the time of these cards, 1905 onwards, small villages only rarely had the visit of a travelling photographer who would then offer the cards to the local post office or village shop to sell,” he said.

Mr Vennet-Smith said sometimes these postcards were the only photographic history of these villages and this particular collection was full of real gems.