306 - Types and Tones
I've looking at sourcing some different stock for my eBay store, and I bought some small lots of postcards. I enjoyed collecting a a few 1960s and 1970s vintage gift cards for myself and that gave me the idea.
The antique ones are beautiful and fascinating. I spent hours this evening, researching and identifying the printing methods and images. Modern tech is so good for this. Hardware: with a combination of the 52mm lens on my iPhone and zooming in on the image I can see a microscopic view of the surface of the image. Software and AI: Google acts as my curator, valuer and antiquarian. On top of that, the big G can read what seems to be indecipherable handwriting and reveal conversations from 150 years ago.
Now with a bit of patience, I can identify the following types of postcard:
- Real Photograph
- Photogravure
- Collotype
- Chromolithograph
- Halftone
- Albumen
There's others too but all of these I had in hand today. The Albumen type print was from 1870! It has a beautiful silvery grey border with a smooth, dark sepia, likeness of a famous opera singer.
Published by Verlag Hermann Leiser in Berlin-Wilmersdorf sometime around 1870. Quite a heart throb!
I could make a pub quiz out of this nerdiness!
If you're interested, I found this definitive website on various techniques with extensive photo examples http://graphicsatlas.org/identification/?process_id=125#overview
