Weird eBay coincidence - can’t explain it ?

[isitnormaltoforget]

My mum has collected postcards for years and years, she has thousands in albums .

I bought a bundle for her from eBay a few days ago on spur of the moment, they arrived yesterday .

Goodness knows how, but among the bundle are 15 postcards that appear to be sent to and from my grandmother’s distant cousins .

Have checked dates, addresses and at least two are 100% definitely my gran’s cousin writing to his mother in 1937, the rest appear to be from cousin’s sisters and sent between 1940 and 1960 . If correct my gran went to their funerals… but we got the postcards by accident, I clicked buy now without thinking !, on eBay of all places .

I’m waiting on the seller replying to a message asking if they just happened upon the cards or if they’re also a cousin! - but it’s so strange.

My gran doesn’t think that family had any children at all, last sibling died in 2008, so it’s probably impossible to really check for certain if we’re right but all the names, addresses, dates add up.

It’s possibly maybe that their houses were cleared and stuff landed up in charity shops and then someone bought it and now selling in again, but how weird that my mum of all people has ended up with them ! It’s not even as if they were local, they lived quite a distance away (about 3 hours drive or so) . Can’t get my head round it at all !

My dad collects them and I've often looked at the backs in the hope of something like this happening (the messages can be interesting anyway) but had no luck.

If the seller is no relative I think your house clearance theory is most likely - they'll have been bought by a collector as a job lot, the collector will sift out what they want and sell the rest on.

Ah, that’s lovely! And it is a coincidence.
However, do a count of all your relatives who come under the umbrella of “distant cousins of your mum’s parents.”
It’s quite a lot.

Now… what was the reason for choosing those postcards? Were they related to a place your grandmother had in common with her relatives? That makes it more likely you’ll order from her relatives. Not very likely, but more likely.

Why does your mum collect postcards? If it was a common thing to do in her wider family that again increases the likelihood that a seller would be related to her. Just a bit.

Things like that add up, and the actual statistics of it happening might be greater than you’d think!

Still a lovely thing though 😀

I got a ghost story book from eBay last week. I remembered it from my youth and had a nostalgia fest. When it arrived it was actually my book from 1987. It had my name in it! My parents obviously chucked a load of my stuff to the charity shop when I moved out! It's an odd coincidence but very comforting somehow.

@Popsicle33

I got a ghost story book from eBay last week. I remembered it from my youth and had a nostalgia fest. When it arrived it was actually my book from 1987. It had my name in it! My parents obviously chucked a load of my stuff to the charity shop when I moved out! It's an odd coincidence but very comforting somehow.

Oh I love that! I want it to be The Amazing Mr Blunden?

Wow what a coincidence! That's really lovely though I bet it was a bit of a weird shock seeing the names and addresses. I hope the seller can shed some light on it for you.

Definitely a shock! Mum has hundreds of postcards from family as she was always given others collections however there’s no way these cousins would have known that (at least, I don’t think so) ; my gran or her sister lived with one of them briefly in the 1950s hence they call them cousins despite them being something like ‘second cousin twice removed’ or something like that . I’m not sure how close they were in later life, they went to my great grandparents funerals I think but that was 20 odd years ago .

Some of them were sent to the husband in hospital which fits, he lost a leg in the war and the postcards were sent to a military hospital which makes sense .

No idea why or when mum started collecting - she’s got them from all the way back to age 5 or 6, but she can’t remember why she started .

The bundle theh were in were sent to a handful of addresses then there’s three piles sent to the same houses - this one that we think is our family, a schoolhouse opposite side of the country and another schoolhouse about 5 miles from where my gran was brought up . Postcards are just mixed B&W northern Scotland …

It’s brilliant and it’s got my gran talking (who’s 82) but a bit frustrating for her as she’s said she wishes she could ask her parents - she’s oldest living relative in family so no one we can really check with .

@Popsicle33 that’s amazing too - I can imagine that would be comforting, yes!

Oh my goodness! Love your story OP. I love postcards and I love coincidences. How amazing.

Also, Popsicle33, you got your own book from ebay? So cool. Funny that it's a ghost story. You have your very own spooky story to tell now. Its like the start of an adventure from a childrens BBC drama (when they used to make them like that)

My coincidence is not so amazing but years back I thought to myself I wish I could remember a spooky tv or film show that I liked. (way before the internet could help me) I went into a charity shop with this thought in my head and there was the book. It was "The ghosts of Motley hall"

It was a Pan Book of Horror Stories! 😂

Isitnormal thats a really lovely story. You could research your family history to check the details.
I love hunting for books. Hunting among 2nd hand books in my favourite book shop in Hay, I found a book previously owned by a friend of mine - a chap and his wife I had known well, 20 years previously in Yorkshire. It turned out that he had died a year before my finding the book so I think his family must have sold a load of his books on when he died. I know it was his because he was an artist - his signature on the book plate he had stuck inside was unmistakably his. He also loved collecting books - I remember going on a trip with him and his wife to a collectors bookshop somewhere in Derbyshire.

I hope this turns into a woo coincidence thread!

@Popsicle33

I got a ghost story book from eBay last week. I remembered it from my youth and had a nostalgia fest. When it arrived it was actually my book from 1987. It had my name in it! My parents obviously chucked a load of my stuff to the charity shop when I moved out! It's an odd coincidence but very comforting somehow.

That's given me the heebie jeebies.

Wow op, that’s so cool!

Yours is amazing too @Popsicle33

That’s brilliant.

My grandfather was a professional sportsman. I never used EBay, but during lockdown I got really bored and looked to see if there was anything with his info in. Someone was selling a signed autograph on a newspaper article that had been cut out and collected with other autographs. The seller was doing a clearance on this collection and it just so happened I checked on the right day. I now own it! Weird to think I never got my grandfathers autograph when he was alive, but got it off eBay by pure chance.