Bottom line: Postcard collectors are so secretive because they don’t want anyone to know what postcards they have in their collection.
For example, if Collector B knew that Collector A has a postcard showing Arnold Scharzenegger passing through Ellis Island as a boy when he arrived on a boat from Europe, then A will probably pester B endlessly about trading a card depicting Babe Ruth in an assignation with a lady of the night in Cleveland. This pestering would go on until… well, until relations became so tense that their wives could no longer trade potato salad recipes.
Another example of the obsession for secrecy: When postcard collectors get together, they tiptoe around one another and speak vaguely about what is in their collections. If Collector A is asked what kinds of cards he specializes in, he might say something like, “the Twentieth Century.” If A then asks Collector B the same question, B might answer, “fatal automobile accidents in which two or more people died.”
These kinds of discussions are almost always carried out in whispers. This is one reason postcard collector shows are nearly as silent as a church congregation engaged in silent prayer. Just about everyone in the vast rented hall is whispering.
What is actually going on with this postcard Kabuki is one collector feeling out another about the possibility of a postcard trade or sale. Occasionally, suspicions can be set aside enough so that one collector shows one of his cards to another.
These displays typically occur in the wee hours of the morning in an empty underground parking garage, a meeting reminiscent of the famous Deep Throat garage meetings of Watergate.
Collector A opens his car trunk, shows a single postcard to Collector B and names a price. “Ya got thirty seconds to make up your mind,” A says.
Collector B purses his lips, taps his foot anxiously all the while staring at a card that shows Woodrow Wilson playing croquet at Princeton University before national duty called him to Washington.
“Ten, nine, eight…” A counts down the seconds.
“Alright, alright,” B snaps and hands over cash.
Five minutes later, they are gone, no farewell embrace, no secret handshake of goodbye and Godspeed.