Postcards

Postcards: "A postcard or post card is typically a rectangular piece of thick paper or thin cardboard intended for writing and mailing without an envelope and at a lower rate than a letter. "

The Wikipedia defines only mint postcard - intended. The definition pertains to the user not a collector. This is the privelege of a collector to make up her or his mind up whether to collect used items or fresh ones. Here typically a used item cannot be reused whereus this is not he case with some other collectibles e g antiquities, veteran cars. In these categories preserved function may be applied as quality criterion - in deltiology this is not the case: what is important is the authenticity material quality and amount of information that a deltiologist may gather from the piece: thus it does not matter significantly whether the postcard is new or used. On the contrary - the used may be rarer and seem to growing rarer as the electronic systems of data and image transfer are ever more usual and common in all walks of life - in sending short messages with a photograph or picture we have a whole lot of efficient digital methods to do this.