Availability of Items Items marked with the 'on hold' icon have already been ordered or enquired about by a customer, and we are awaiting payment or resoultion of the enquiry. Since we operate on a 'first-come-first-served' basis, prior orders always take precedence. However, sometimes such orders and enquiries do not complete, so if an item you would like is shown as 'on hold' it is always worth enquiring, just in case. Note that from time to time, we do offer items from our stock on online auctions. When items are listed on auctions we do not immediately mark them as on hold, though we do try to do so once they have attracted bids. This, together with the fact that we cannot always update the site immediately when orders have been received, means that occasionally some items that are not shown as being on hold, may not actually be available. Descriptions of Cards We take care to describe cards with a degree of accuracy commensurate with the age and value of the card, and will always describe any major flaws. Any card which you feel has been descibed innaccurately or inadequately may be returned for a full refund, though at the time of writing (July 2001) no customer has ever needed to do so. Note that our descriptions do not usually mention writing on the face of postcards where this was normal practice at the time. Cards which are stated to have an 'undivided back' were produced at a time when only the address could be written on the back of the card (the rules and timings varied from country to country, but the change over from undivided to divided backs was approximately 1905-1910). Used cards with undivided backs will usually have writing on the face of the card (many were deliberately designed with white space to be written in), and in most cases this will be visible in the scan of the card. Post and Packing Post and packing for postcards in 50p in the UK (1$ US) for up to 5 cards. Cards will be normally be supplied in a plastic sleeve in an envelope stiffened with cardboard. Postcards bought with books or other heavy items are post free, as are cards bought in quantities of more than 5. Postcard pictures and Variants Note that we handle significant numbers of postcards. Pictures given on this site are pictures of an individual copy of a particular card. Please read the descriptions carefully - the picture may not be of the exact card offered (especially with cards on Schubert or other composers), and the descriptions will include any flaws. In some cases we will show a single picture for several cards which are 'the same'. If you require a scan of a particular card, please ask. We generally do not identify particular variants of Schubert cards (see our Schubert Postcard Catalogue) in these listings. If you want a particular variant, please contact us with the details. Postcard images take up a lot of disc space. To prevent extremely long download times, we show 'thumbprint' images on the listing pages. Clicking on a thumbprint image will show a larger (usually either full size, or approx. half size) image of the card. Listings without a thumbprint, or with a broken link symbol, do not currently have images loaded onto our site, although we do intend to provide pictures of most cards. At your request, any card may be placed 'on hold' and a full size image of any card may be supplied by email, unless we are prevented from doing so by copyright restrictions, as may be the case with more modern cards. In some cases, where we have many cards to list, a general description of the cards available for a topic is given. Full catalogue details, and scans will be available on request.