Putting postcards under the hammer

You remember postcards, right? They were like Instagram, but you wrote the caption on the other side of the picture.

Last night, Manchester architects Levitt Bernstein held a postcard auction in aid of Shelter. Designers of the arty cards included New Order, Karl Hyde, Mr Scruff and Mary Anne Hobbs.

One of my own designs went under the hammer too. It fetched £45, which wasn't bad for a sketchy pen scrawl. Some of them went for £200, which is £1.29 per centimetre.

The auctioneer was the comedian, actor and Manchester celebrity John Thomson. He took the mick beautifully out of the designs (“looks like Johnny Vegas, he said if mine), and bled our pockets dry with a twinkle in his eye.

Actually, I didn't win a single auction on the night, so it turned out pretty cheap for me. I went in steep for the Mr Scruff postcard, but I was easily outbid. Shelter, a donation is on the way.