old postcards

We travel to France regularly and the one thing I have collected over the years is old Hand-colored postcards . I have men , women, couples, children, animals and pets, holidays... April Fool's day is the neatest..., and recently I have added cards of the same models into groupings. There are even war ones and sets of the same person or kid with a pet or lover. When we go to Paris I trek to the postcard shops and Port de Vanves flea market on the weekend. They will give you good deals if youm buy a lot.Mine are from the early 1900's. I even have women that have real hair .... on the postcard. They remind me of everything I love about Paris. I even have one of Rue Cler in 1902. I think Madame Gourdal would like to get her hands on it.

Trudy, you may have completely misread the guy. Many French people have an intense love of Americans, particularly if they are older people. When my parents visited France they were constantly treated to drinks, helped out, and thanked (I think they assumed, because of my dad's age, and the fact they were visiting Normandy during a WWII anniversary year, that he was a veteran) when people found out they were American. And the French also have had a history of differences with their British neighbors. Why would you assume the price he gave you was higher, not lower, than the "English" price?

Don't worry, I think that the shopowner was probably asking whether you were American or British out of friendly curiosity, given that he'd probably guessed that you were either one or the other (to a foreign ear the difference between British and American accents is not necessarily that easy to make). Also, as he quoted the price in dollars, it could be that he wanted to quote a currency that you'd be familiar with.

By the way, next time you're in Europe make sure you visit flea markets and the like - you will surely come across old postcards, so the occasion was not lost, merely postponed.

I would love to hunt for old postcards in Paris when I go in September 2010 but need some specifics on where to look. The major flea markets sound enormous and overwhelming. Does anyone have specifics on which flea market is best for old postcards, old photos and other paper ephemera? Would love some tips or ideas.

thanks !

Wendy....probably better to set up a new post rather than revive on that's 10 months old...that way, you'll get e-mail notifications of the responses, rather than the original poster.
For Paris, the Marche aux Puches in the very north of Paris has many places that offer old postcards, photos, posters, paper, etc. The best are found in the permanent shops inside the market itself....not the transient vendors that set up on the streets. The market operates Saturday through Monday, and is accessible by walking north from the Porte de Clignancourt metro stop (line 4) and under the Peripherique ring road. If you go to maps.google.com and copy and paste the following coordinates into the search box (48.902255,2.343489) you'll come to the triangle of streets that is the heart of the permanent shops at the market.

Thank you Norm! Much appreciated. Right, a new post might be in order and I'll do that closer to my departure date.

If anyone else does have suggestions on where to find old documents, post cards etc. please send me a private message. Thanks!