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Company name: Littauer & Boysen
Address: Skalitzerstr. 104, Berlin SO (found here from 1895 on)
In business from: 1882 - 1936
Printer: yes Publisher: yes
Means of production / workforce:
350 workers in 1896 – Some 500-600 around 1904-1905, 12 flatbed litho presses, additional 45 presses for embossing etc. incl. 9 huge steam-powered models – 17 litho presses and 500 workers in 1907 – 400 workers and 17 litho presses between 1913 and c. mid 1920’s. – 270 workers in 1927
Trademark(s):
Company initials L. & B. arranged in triangle design. It was supposed that quite some L. & B. printed and published cards don’t show their logo. Very likely they worked also as contract printer for other postcard publishers.
Specialised in:
One of Berlin’s big deLuxe paper manufacturers with a wide variety of chromolitho (later also halftone) printed, often embossed and/or stamped out articles, much exports. Plus poster / calendar printing, reliefs, greeting cards (fold-out) / subject and greeting cards in ppc size.
Notes: Business set up by Arnold Littauer (1856 - 1908) and Franz Georg Boysen (? - 1917?) who had left the company in 1910. Thereafter run by Heinrich Kristeller and Alfred Einzig. The company came in financial difficulties by the early 1930’s. Their Jewish background meant the end and Nazi-controlled institutions / banks took over the business. Alfred Einzig committed suicide on Jan. 21, 1934. Heinrich Kristeller was deported to the concentration camp Theresienstadt and died on Dec. 3, 1942.
Portrait of Arnold Littauer (woodcut type illustration from ‘Jahrbuch fuer das Lithogr. Gewerbe 1910’) who died on 17 July 1908 in the age of 52 years.
Illustrations (from top):
L&B ser. 16213, not p/u, message dated 1916
L&B ser. 16565, not p/u
L&B 1a ser. 16564, p/u 1923
L&B ser. 16482, not p/u
L&B no. 16717 - art reproduction, halftone printed. Artist: H. Clementz. Title: Dreaming. Not p/u, mailed inside envelope.
L&B ser. 50756 - Woman holding flowers coming down stairs. signed ‘B. Parsons’. Not p/u, post-1905 production. Chromolitho.
L&B series no. 161, small rural view together with poem (Spring). Common but popular then design. P/u March 1904 and so the earliest postally used Littauer & Boysen card.
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