Whilst trying to contact collectors on specific forums I had advised to use ebay to buy material for myself. This is increasingly where collectors now buy and sell new acquisitions. It also seemed the most convenient option for me as I am in control of what content I use. I set myself a budget of no more than £2 per item including postage costs. I didn’t not however set myself a total overall cost and this quickly grew. I took full advantage of combined postage from individual sellers and contacted them letting them know my interest in postcards depicting Southampton and asked them to keep me in mind if they got hold of any further stock. Creating this contact is essential for a collector wishing to gain items before other collectors get a chance. On one occasion one seller gave me two postcards for free because I had bought several others from them.
The focus of this project has changed from studying those who collect, why they do it and what they deem important enough to collect, to becoming a collector myself and taking on the role and the mentality of one. I was selective in what I bought and chose to disregard certain themes, for example postcards showing the Titanic or any card showing naval ships, cruises or the docks. These were of no interest to me despite also being a significant part of Southampton's history. Collectors are very precise in what they decide to focus their interest on. It may be particular types of postcard or items only by a certain publisher or a specific period of history. I also found myself grouping them by my own arbitrary rules, such as chronologically (dated by the postmark on used postcards), by style or by view.
At this point I decided to start creating this website, mimicking those I have seen by other collectors who make them because they want to share with a wider audience their hobby and the interesting items they come across. When creating a website you have to consider the copyright of the images you are using. This became an interesting issue with this mixture of postcards. The 1988 Copyright Act states the duration of copyright for artistic works as 70 years from the year the author dies. If the author is unknown copyright lasts 70 years from the year the work was created. The law also states that a "reasonable effort" must be made to find the copyright holder.
I could immediately rule out some of the very earliest postcards that did not credit the photographer. I tried searching those cards that did credit an individual or publishing company but many had long ceased trading which made them very hard to trace. Their only existance was now on collector's forums being talked about and reminisced. I asked the collectors on these forums if they could provide an insight but they were sympathetic to the lack of contact available. I went as far as contacting again the sellers I had bought the cards from on the off chance they could offer some further information - they could not but wished me good luck in my work. By this point I decided I had made a good enough effort to trace copyright holders to ask for permission to use the images. I was also told that it should not be too big an issue because the website and images were not being used as part of a business to make profit and contacting the people I had was enough to cover myself legally on the very small chance that a third party took issue with my work.
The focus of this project has changed from studying those who collect, why they do it and what they deem important enough to collect, to becoming a collector myself and taking on the role and the mentality of one. I was selective in what I bought and chose to disregard certain themes, for example postcards showing the Titanic or any card showing naval ships, cruises or the docks. These were of no interest to me despite also being a significant part of Southampton's history. Collectors are very precise in what they decide to focus their interest on. It may be particular types of postcard or items only by a certain publisher or a specific period of history. I also found myself grouping them by my own arbitrary rules, such as chronologically (dated by the postmark on used postcards), by style or by view.
At this point I decided to start creating this website, mimicking those I have seen by other collectors who make them because they want to share with a wider audience their hobby and the interesting items they come across. When creating a website you have to consider the copyright of the images you are using. This became an interesting issue with this mixture of postcards. The 1988 Copyright Act states the duration of copyright for artistic works as 70 years from the year the author dies. If the author is unknown copyright lasts 70 years from the year the work was created. The law also states that a "reasonable effort" must be made to find the copyright holder.
I could immediately rule out some of the very earliest postcards that did not credit the photographer. I tried searching those cards that did credit an individual or publishing company but many had long ceased trading which made them very hard to trace. Their only existance was now on collector's forums being talked about and reminisced. I asked the collectors on these forums if they could provide an insight but they were sympathetic to the lack of contact available. I went as far as contacting again the sellers I had bought the cards from on the off chance they could offer some further information - they could not but wished me good luck in my work. By this point I decided I had made a good enough effort to trace copyright holders to ask for permission to use the images. I was also told that it should not be too big an issue because the website and images were not being used as part of a business to make profit and contacting the people I had was enough to cover myself legally on the very small chance that a third party took issue with my work.
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