Hand Painted Postcard

Is this card hand painted or hand tinted & does it have any value??

I aspire to know more than I do.

Very high magnification will expose artifacts that will help you understand how a card was printed.

http://www.metropostcard.com/techniques0.html ... A Guide to Postcard Printing Techniques

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Thanks ikeyPicky, Any idea what the corner markings are?

Well, it is card #1 of series #71 by GG Company.

A similar logo & company name can be found at:

http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersg.html




Collotypes have a distinct micro-appearance.

If you can post a very high resolution (2400 dpi) image of a very small part of the card, I can probably tell you if it is a collotype.

I know the guy who built the MPC database, and I know that he has forgotten more about postcards than I will ever know, but remember that pretty much every online database was built by volunteer labor from the available data.


Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

G G Co. is identified by several sources (such as
http://www.helmut-schmidt-online.de...lishers.html
http://www.tpa-project.info/html/bo...marks_2.html
http://www.amazon.de/Warenkatalog-K...p/B00LVA4K0E )
as Georg Gerlach AG, Berlin.

See also:
https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibli...7EXVFHIOLOZW
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Gerlach

Thanks everyone for the usefull information, I am saving all the links for sure.. ikeyPikey Are these close enough?

Sorry, no, a photograph (sans macrolens) isn't going to provide the necessary level of detail.

I use a 30X 'pocket microscope' - a reticule would work just as well - to reveal printing techniques.

Maybe I just need to look at more of them, but even a 2400 dpi scan - which will help you distinguish real photos from half-tones in a heart beat - does not capture the level of detail needed to distinguish collotype from rotogravure, or to distinguish the different types of half-tones.

(Part of the problem may be that my scanner has a low optical (physical) resolution, and is algorithmically boosting its resolution. I went fishing for the original specs, but the manufacturer does not have the documentation online for my discontinued product.)

I am very interested in printing & colorization techniques, and wish you the best.

The Mad In Pursuit blog has about the best high-mag examples I've seen 1) on line, and 2) in one place.

http://www.madinpursuit.com/Tutoria...cardRef2.htm ... for black'n'white postcards

http://www.madinpursuit.com/Tutoria...ardRef3.html ... for color (and colour) postcards

As always, remember that these 'reference' websites are put together by volunteers on a samples-available time-available basis, and that different people have come to understand different technical terms in different ways. For example:

Q/ Are there differences between 'hand-colored', 'hand-painted', and 'hand-tinted'?

Q/ Do people use these terms consistently? (Okay, that's easy: "NO!")

Q/ How can I tell the difference between colors added to a photograph by the use of a photo mask and color-sensitive emulsion, versus a mask and brushed-on tinting, without calling Abby Sciuto?

Q/ Does the use of a mask & brush qualify as 'hand' work, or does 'hand' necessarily mean 'free-hand'?

I hope you get the bug, learn more, and come back & tell me.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

I recently came by a couple Japanese cards that would qualify as hand-painted. Though it's not obvious in these scans, the sheen on the heaviest inked or painted areas is very clear, and could not have been printed. It's possible the lighter areas were pre-printed, then hand-finished. Has anyone come across similar postcards?

GregAlex, Greetings:

I have come across these cards - and saved every one - but I am not sure that the very different appearance of the thick, black, raised ink of the tree and the thinner, flatter ink of the background is due to handpainting of the former.

For a similar example in another format, see:

http://goscf.com/t/31740&whichpage=3#365793

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

It might have been possible to print something like using thermographic printing (the way embossed/raised print is done on business cards), but the technology to do it by machine wasn't invented until 1915. Before that it would have been done by hand, so painting would have been just as easy. Unfortunately these cards aren't cancelled and there's no way to date them from looking at the back, unless the Japanese script is some help. Here's a close-up holding the card at an angle to the light. To me it just looks too sloppy to have been done by machine.

nice card

Here is another card that is clearly hand-tinted when you see it in hand. It is a RPPC which, by itself, wouldn't be all that interesting -- but the bright orange watercolor really makes the lava pop.

While collotype is excellent for reproduction, I would think the first card is hand colored. For one, the color separation is too perfect when something in color would tend to show color separation between each of the colors. Second, the brush strokes look like brush strokes; admittedly collotype would reproduce that perfectly. Still, in the blue wash blowup, I see bubbles and paper disturbance from brushwork.

Collotype can be very finicky for commercial purposes where you might get hundreds of impressions from one color plate and maybe only a few dozen of another. Been there, done that, though in single colors. Collotype works best for single color work. A starving painter could always potentially crank out a lot more hand painted cards when needed, cheaply, whereas a new gelatin plate has to be made for reprints. Maybe the underlying gray/black artwork could be collotype, but collotype is generally reserved for more intricate artwork or photo reproductions.

In the Japanese cards, basic parts like the land mass and Fuji, foreground, house and sails are done using stencils so that the major parts can be done quickly and in position. Birds, tree trunks (in enamel paint), etc. are freehand. The leaves and bushes are enamel paint applied with a stiff brush with a stabbing motion; no mystery there. If we can find others with the same designs, you'll see the variation on the freehand parts.