Black and Gold II

More examples of the trend to frame a tinted image in black stencilled with gold. 

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The effect seems to have been achieved by prolonging the light exposure of the non-image parts of the print. This hyperexposure results in a very high density of silver in the black regions. Denser regions of photographic prints are more prone to the type of deterioration known as silver mirroring, resulting in the blue-silver appearance in the black regions of most of these types of card. When they were first made, the black would have been solid and matte. 

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This card was sent for New Year's 1942, probably almost a decade after it was made. 

Exceptional Embellishment

Though it would seem bright colours and hand-tinting would be more than enough, sometimes makers and/or consumers thought these cards could use even more. It is not uncommon to see cards with golden ink, dramatic frames, or glitter in addition to colour. These cards go beyond even that.

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That ribbon is an actual, shiny ribbon that has been affixed to the postcard, in addition to the glitter in her hair. 

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Beneath a Golden Sky

One more digression before getting back into the history: this stunning pair of "sister" cards painted over with a Japanese-inspired background and gold-coloured paint. Like many "sisters" from the same photoshoot, the tinting style is the same between them but there is a colour variation. So far I've only seen a few examples of this kind of card, where a background or shapes are painted onto the card after printing (always including gold-colouring), but they're pretty great. 

The message on this one is sweet-- it is a brother and sister wishing their brother happy birthday. 

All That Glitters

For when bright colours just aren't enough! Glitter was being used on postcards from the early 1900s, and though they aren't especially common, romantic fantasy cards embellished with glitter (usually in addition to tinting and/or toning) were seen throughout the 1920s and early 30s. 

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En Rouge

Today, a bit of a strange trend-- painting blank backgrounds bright red. This never seems to have been a popular variation-- I've only ever seen four examples, and all published by the same house, ARS. Two of mine are from the same photoshoot, and the other one seems to feature the same models. Honestly I think it looks terrible, but it's interesting that at some point, someone thought it would be cool, and some people bought them, agreeing. 

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This card was sent in 1938, but it's an outlier--the look of romance postcards in general had totally changed by the mid-1930s, the date on the other dated postcard in this post is 1924, and as this red background seems never to have become popular, it probably didn't last very long in the first place. 

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In this one, from the same photoshoot as the last (and with the same number), the woman's dress gets silver tinting, one of a couple examples I have where images from the same photoshoot have just slight variations-- I suspect this might mean they weren't made at exactly the same time/place, but I don't know. 

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Dated 1924. 

Colour and Gold

Last month, I shared a lovely sub-genre of postcard where a tinted image was bordered with thick black, embellished with gold decoration. 

Though less common, these were sometimes done with a dye-toned image, again with a wide border and gold decoration: 

Black and Gold

A trend from the early 1930s-- the image is printed vignetted in a black background. The image is tinted and the black background is embellished with gold designs. Aren't they great? Sometimes a similar thing was done with dye-toned cards--but that is a story for another day! 

These were made by a few of the different publishing houses, although all the ones I own happen to be from PC Paris. 

You will notice these have a look of silver tarnish around the edges-- this is what is known as silver mirroring or silvering out, a process of deterioration that occurs in silver gelatin (ie, regular black-and-white) prints. It is most marked in dark areas, and since these have a lot of dark areas, well! I think it actually looks rather pretty in this case, but it is worth noting that it is not the original appearance-- the black would have been purely matte black. 

(The identification number of this postcard, in the bottom right, is exactly consecutive to the one above. So far this is the only instance I have of two exactly consecutive cards, though I have a couple that are very close.)