ADVICE FOR COLLECTORS

The best advice I can give to those wishing to start a collection of Transformationalist Postcards is to go with your instincts. If you avoid the specialist dealers and always buy from the high street then for a modest outlay you may take home an authentic Transformationalist Postcard or if not, then all you will have lost is a few pennies. Don`t clog up the street consulting one of the many guides while you make your decision, just buy the thing and then contemplate it at home, preferably in a relaxing atmosphere with some Fess Williams on the CD player.

There are many misconceptions, half-truths and downright canards in the world of the Transformationalist Postcard collector. Only the Classic is truly transformationalist, the variants are worthless. There must only be two figures and both must be men. The photographs must be monochrome and of a certain vintage. None of this is true. Although hats are obligatory.

Transformationalist postcards can be found anywhere in the world and they continue to be printed to this day. I purchased the following postcard in York this year. It is not a particularly fine example of the Classic (the two figures have their backs to the camera and are rather indistinct - one appears to be female) but I include it here to demolish the myths about colour and age. Please click on the photograph to see a larger image.

Some people, in an attempt to limit the size of their collections, tend to specialize in one of the variants. I do not advise this course for the beginner, variant-collecting is fraught with many dangers. Click on the photograph below to discover how one experienced collector was hoodwinked.

The One Man Variant is probably the trickiest area for the novice collector. There are two common errors which should be avoided. First, the `figure inserted for scale`:

Next, `the reckless man`:

Finally, the Trinity. Perhaps the rarest of the variants and for the collector a potential minefield of mistakes. To illustrate how close one can come to discarding a masterpiece, I present the following:

At first sight a totally confusing image. Is this a One Man Variant (our attention is drawn first to the central figure of the boy facing the camera), or a `reckless man` (although he stands safely on the pavement, unlike the lad behind him)? Perhaps the second lad is the `One Man`, he is striking an odd pose with his legs crossed. Or are we meant to relate the two and take it as a Classic? And are they wearing hats? It is difficult to tell. About to dismiss it out of hand as too contradictory, we catch sight of the third lad on the right. He is touching his cap. The clue, as in so much else in transformationalism, is in the hat. This is a genuine Trinity!

Finally, in this modern age of computers, how do we define a postcard? It would be quite easy to take a photograph, print it off on a blank postcard and pass it off as the genuine article. Perhaps in years to come these too will be regarded as worthy of collection, but for now I would urge you to ignore such fakes and concentrate on the real thing. As a final example I have included this effort by the Artists Action Group which was heavily influenced by the Transformationalists and attempted a revival of Transformationalism in the 1970s. They managed to get this photograph printed in a book of postcards of Stoke-on-Trent. I only wish that they had diverted some of their hard work and enterprise into the photograph itself. It is a poor thing. The two characters are crossing the street and they are not even wearing hats. Whether this was a foolish attempt to create a new variant, or whether they just did not understand the principles behind the Transformationalist Postcard, I do not know. If you wish to see the enlarged image then click on the picture. Personally, I wouldn`t bother.

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