# Securing postcards: the view, the writing, and the box that turns acidic

> Secure postcards: flat, no rubber band, read the writing side too, expensive cards one by one on the list.
> Quelle: https://tresorrari.de/artikel/postkarten-sammlung-sichern · Stand: 2026-10-01 · Tresorrari Redaktion

An old picture postcard is two sides: the image and the message. Anyone who scans only the picture loses the postmark, the route, and the handwriting, and the price often sits there. In the overview [Security for collectors](/artikel/sicherheit-fuer-sammler), the card sits with the paper, next to stamps and banknotes.

## What breaks without a thief

Rubber bands cut through the stack in twenty years. Metal clips rust. Sunlight takes the color off the lithographic print. Cardboard boxes from the supermarket turn acidic. You store flat, in sleeves, in the dark, dry, and you do not stack so high that the bottom card loses its embossing.

## When someone comes

A shoebox is taken quickly and thrown away quickly, because it looks like paper. For you, what is lost is the order. Really expensive single cards, for example with a rare view or a significant handwriting, do not sit in the box with the thousands. They have a sleeve of their own in the document cabinet and a line in the list.

## The folder

Place, publisher, whether it went through the mail, and one sentence on the back. For bulk holdings you count the boxes and describe the main themes. For the expensive cards, a picture of both sides, stored outside the apartment.

## Häufige Fragen

### Mix mailed and unmailed cards?

In storage, yes. In the list, no. Mailed means: the postmark and the text belong to the piece.

### Are rubber bands a theft problem?

No. They are a time problem. They crush the stack and discolor it.

### How many cards belong in one box?

Few enough that you can lift the stack without creasing the bottom card.