Favourite Cards of the Editor

THE POSTCARD ALBUM

POSTCARD PRINTER & PUBLISHER RESEARCH

I was asked by a collector from the USA – she has discovered TPA via this website – whether I would live for printing sample cards and logo’s only. Well, no I don’t.

Being an offset printer by professional, it has surely influenced my picture postcard likes and dislikes. I really admire some of the old, meanwhile forgotten printing techniques, what people back then have created without electronic assistance as nowadays.

But I do also appreciate well arranged, photographed views. Sometimes I keep cards and cannot really tell why. Here is a small selection of my ‘favourites’.


	Woman posing in Japanese (?) dress– published and made by NPG, Berlin. Card no. 10 from series 364. P/u May 1906. Guess to feed the then actual interest in motifs from Japan, China etc. The image received a detailed, high glossy finish and all the brown areas show a matt, velvet-like surface. Clever idea and excellently done!

	Ballet dancer from the coloured ‘Fasto’ silhouette series signed ‘MG = Marte Graf. This card published by Novitas, Berlin in their ‘Coloured Stage’ series and not by O. Zehrfeld. Not p/u, c. 1920s.

Mannheim, Germany. River port (Rhine). In my opinion this is a fine photographed view. A real photo or I should better call it correctly a bromide photo card in (matt) sepia style, excellent tonal range. Plenty of details of interest to me, loving ‘industrial’ as well as shipping motifs. not p/u, c. 1920’s.

A production of Trinks & Co., Leipzig, Saxony (‘Teco’ logo). Trinks & Co. (in business 1907 – c. 1950) were big in topo cards. Earlier with a range of greeting cards, too.




	Previous shown Arthur Thiele card replaced by a Belgium artist with ‘Bizuth’ signature (and not “Bizeth” as I and others had thought). Bizuth was the alias of Hubert Olyff (1900-1977), engineer, business man, political artist. A well done chromolithography (by “Capry” from Brux). The artist added a ‘46`to his signature = 1946 I believe. This view carries the number 1, caption (French / Dutch / English) reads “Don R’s” in occupied Germany. Reprints of this series were done using offset process by “l’Electrotypie de Genval”, Belgium.


	A Gloucester Fishermann, Mass. USA. Rotograph Co. NY card A 6660. Not p/u, copyright year 1905. Perfect wide tonal range collotype printing on matt card. Printers were Knackstedt & Naether, Hamburg.

	> I appreciate cards with ‘industrial’ topics, men at work, machinery etc. Especially French, but most of all Belgian photographers and publishers did great series. This card shows a coin press at the French Mint, Paris. Card no. 16 from bigger series printed by collotype process. Published / photo by “L. Baslè, Robinson (Seine)”, not p/u.


		Even standard or common views like this from Rehefeld, Saxony come out excellent when printed by Nenke & Ostermaier’s Photochrom process. The Dresden based printer and publisher is one of my all time favourites! Series 2, no. 111, not p/u.



	Strange humour? Egypt, porter with heavy load. The writing on the right case reads: ‘Dr. T. & Co.’, the initials of publ./printer Dr. Trenkler & Co., Leipzig. Series 1713, card 4. Not p/u.


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