Saturday was a beautiful Autumn day, perfect for a visit to Shoreham by Sea in West Sussex for the Shoreham Postcard Fair. This is my closest regular postcard fair now and my brother and I usually try to make it to every one.
The fair seemed particularly busy today, with a good mix of dealers, and whilst I have called it a postcard fair, it is actually described as a “postcard and ephemera fair with stamps, coins and militaria”, all of which were available at the fair.
Whilst my main interest is in postcards it is easy to get drawn into ephemera and philatelic subjects, but today I was pretty much focused on postcards and in particular on the theme of prehistory and archaeology.
It is relatively easy to find postcards of Stonehenge and Avebury, but it is becoming harder to find ones that I don’t already have in my collection, but nevertheless I came away with a good selection of cards, although admittedly some of these were minor variations of cards that I already own.
I didn’t manage to get around to all of the dealers, however I was more than happy with the number of cards I came away with.
Probably my best find of the day was a real photographic card of a procession at Maumbury Rings in Dorchester, Dorset. Maumbury Rings began life as a Neolithic henge, hence my interest in it, but what you can see today is largely the remains of a Roman amphitheatre.
In June 1911 there was a service at Maumbury Rings for the coronation of King George V and I suspect that this procession was part of that ceremony. Sadly the card is unused so no clues as to whom the person pointed to by the arrow was.
The best thing about this postcard was that it was half price, which made it a real bargain. No doubt you will hear more about this card and Maumbury Rings in the future, as I do want to do some more research on the subject, especially the Coronation service.
Sussex Collectors Fairs have one more fair in Shoreham for 2026, on the 19th December, but have now released the dates for their 2027 fairs, which are listed below (correct at the time of posting).
| Saturday 27th February 2027 |
| Saturday 24th April 2027 |
| Saturday 26th June 2027 |
| Saturday 21st August 2027 |
| Saturday 30th October 2027 |
| Saturday 18th December 2027 |
