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.)

Thinking of You

Visual representations of loving thoughts. 

(this one is metallic)

The Single Man

Men were also sometimes represented on their own, though less commonly than women. The single man is always presented as "the lover", with flowers, a letter, or both.

(As I noted in the last post, in my early days I wasn't scanning blank versos, and have yet to make up for it. The verso of this one is blank, but will be added in the future.)

(This postcard is an interesting anomaly. The card itself almost certainly comes from the late 1920s or early 1930s, like the other cards in this blog. Both the bright dye-toning and the man's overall 'look' were past by the mid 1930s. However, it was sent as a New Year's card for 1940. Very interesting!)

The Single Woman

Though postcards depicting couples appear to be the most common-- and are my favourite to collect-- postcards depicting individual women were also published in large numbers. As in the couple cards, the women are pretty, coy, and exceptionally well-dressed. 

(The verso of this one is blank. This is one of my earlier cards, and at the time I wasn't scanning blank versos. One day I will get to it and update!)

A Tinted Photoshoot

Another series of postcards from the same photoshoot, this time illustrating the ways photoshoots and tinting interacted. Notice especially how the woman's dress changes colour-- you see this often when you get multiple tinted examples from the same photoshoot. This collection also contains the first time I've ever had two exact doubles--publishers didn't seem to make tons of each postcard, preferring to publish several slight variations. 

All these cards are blank on the backs, so I've only reproduced one of the versos.

(The double of the one above)