{"id":1169,"date":"2020-10-02T08:45:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T07:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christmas-connections.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2020-10-24T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2020-10-24T18:07:14","slug":"is-it-worth-keeping-unusual-or-famous-christmas-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christmas-connections.co.uk\/blog\/is-it-worth-keeping-unusual-or-famous-christmas-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Is it worth keeping unusual or famous Christmas cards?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eight years ago, in November 2012, a selection of nine Christmas cards sent by Prince Charles and Diana, the Princess of Wales, were due to be auctioned.\u00a0 The intense interest surrounded the images on the cards which were of Charles and Diana with the Princes, William and Harry.\u00a0 The poses were natural, touching family photos and act as something of a timeline of the growing princes.\u00a0 The cards are also signed by the royal couple.<\/p>\n

In May 2019, two more Christmas cards bearing the signatures of the Prince and Princess of Wales sold for \u00a31,500 auctioned by Hansons Auctioneers<\/a> and well exceeding their guide price of \u00a3300.\u00a0 These cards were sent to Harold Wilson, the former Prime Minister and his wife, Mary.\u00a0 These royal cards are still around and you don\u2019t have to have been either famous or rich to have received one.<\/p>\n

Hansons also discovered some royal Christmas cards buried in a box of stamps.\u00a0 The cards had been sent between 1985 and 1999 and all posted to the late George and Muriel Constable.\u00a0 The cards feature the usual happy childhood pictures that many families send during the festive season.\u00a0 The cards are signed by Charles and Diana but from 1997, Diana\u2019s name is not on the last few because of her untimely death in a car accident aged 36.\u00a0 Her early demise makes Diana\u2019s signature much rarer than that of Prince Charles.\u00a0 The cards had passed to the then vendor after the death of Muriel Constable in 1993 and lain untouched for nearly a quarter of a century.\u00a0 Muriel and her husband ran the Post Office in Newton Saint Loe near Bath in Somerset, a village which forms part of the Duchy of Cornwall hence the monarchical connection.\u00a0 Muriel was a stamp and card collector which is why the cards were found in a box of stamps.<\/p>\n

The people placing the cards up for auction had not realised they existed.\u00a0 They came across one of Muriel\u2019s boxes and decided to ask Hansons, the auctioneer, to take a look at the stamps to identify and value them.\u00a0 The cards were discovered hidden in the box and were indeed highly collectable.\u00a0 The earliest card dates to 1985 when the Princes were aged around one and three.\u00a0 The latest card was sent in 1999 when the boys were teenagers but Diana\u2019s signature has disappeared by then.\u00a0 The cards are an incredibly poignant record of Diana\u2019s tragic and early death in a car crash in Paris.\u00a0 The scarcity of Diana\u2019s signature is what puts the premium price on the cards\u00a0 So, are old Christmas cards, royal or not, worth anything?<\/p>\n

Clearly, royal cards will have a value even if they are not very old.\u00a0 A simple signature will have an attributable price but a personal message or connection could increase this many times.\u00a0 But standard old cards from people who neither rich nor famous could still fetch a bob or two based purely on their age.<\/p>\n

Victorian era cards so pre 1900s are collectable, particularly those which feature hand-painted illustrations of birds and flowers \u2013 remember, early Christmas cards were not particularly festive.\u00a0 Snowy scenes and images of Father Christmas came much later on.\u00a0 So, is there anything you should look out for in particular if you want to start collecting or you come across a box of old Christmas cards in granny\u2019s attic and wonder if they are worth anything?<\/p>\n