Our Story

Deltiology is the study and collection of postcards.

Marilyn Gottlieb

I never dreamed of becoming a deltiologist, but in 1978, when I was 13 years old, my mother, Marilyn, and I went to a flea market where I saw my first two postcards of children in uniform playing baseball. Finding these cards and adding them to my extensive baseball card collection was the spark that eventually found me here today.

The same year I bought the first two postcards, my father, Howard, attended an antique show in Miami, Florida, USA, where he discovered a box of New York postcards. Within minutes of flipping through the postcards, he came across the one-room schoolhouse he attended as a child in the small town of Rock Hill, NY, located in Sullivan County, 90 miles northwest of New York City. You might recognize Sullivan County, home of the 1969 historic rock concert, Woodstock Music Festival in Bethel, NY.

Howard and Marilyn quickly became collectors of postcards of the 113 towns located in Sullivan County. They started buying every postcard they could find by combing estate sales, auctions, garage sales, and flea markets. They stayed up until the crack of dawn organizing, cataloging, pricing, and sleeving the postcards. Once their collection was large enough, they started selling at postcard shows, paper shows, and antique shows on the weekends in the northeast. They eventually traveled across America to shows in mid-west and west. They went on buying trips to Europe twice a year for 25 years, returning with suitcases full of postcards. I was lucky enough to accompany them on nine of their buying trips during my high school and college years. I was hooked on postcards!

My father and his brother owned three hardware and supermarket stores throughout Sullivan County. After I graduated from college, I worked at the family business and in 1995 opened up our family's 4^th hardware store but sold five years later due to big box stores coming to our trading area.

Alan Gottlieb (left) and my father, Howard Gottlieb (right)

Unsure of what to do next, a college friend suggested that I take my parent's postcard business online. With a one-card scanner and corner in my garage, Oldpostcards.com was born. Since then, I've launched, USpostcards.com for all states, Worldpostcards.com for every country, and OldTradecards.com selling Victorian advertising cards from the turn of the 20th Century. OldPostcardShop.com, a platform to sell all of the postcards in our collection in one spot.

Marilyn and Howard retired to Ft Lauderdale, Florida. However, my father is still happily involved in his hobby and a tremendous help to our business by finding new collections for the company.

We now have over 2 million postcards in stock with four offices, seven employees, two webmasters, and an API engineer located in London.

To our fellow deltiologist, we hope you enjoy collecting postcards as much as we do. We would love to hear from you at or give us a call at 719-622-6722.

Happy collecting,
Alan

First two postcards Alan Gottlieb purchased - Postcards of children in uniform playing baseball.

First postcard Howard Gottlieb purchased - One-room schoolhouse he attended as a child in the small town of Rock Hill, NY.