Directory P

C.P. Company, Glasgow.

• C.P. Co. GLASGOW.

Specialised early on in patriotic greetings postcards against tartan background. In the divided-back era, the company published topographical photocards of central Scotland.

Italo Pacchioni, Milan, Italy

• I Pacchioni

Italo Pacchioni (Mirandola 29 March 1872 to Milan 11 July 1940) was an inventor, photographer and Italian film pioneer. Pacchioni has been hailed as the father of Italian cinema and filmed Giuseppe Verdi’s funeral in 1901.

Pacchioni created a cinema device of the same type as the Lumiére brothers and improved it so that one could synchronise two films side by side, a device used throughout the golden period of cinema. In 1896 he filmed Il finto storpio, (The fake cripple) a forty-three second drama shot inside the courtyards of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. The film shows a boy pretending to be crippled begs from numerous passers-by before being unmasked. At the time it was considered a very funny movie technically of considerable duration and was screened for a paying audience. Pacchioni’s other works were scenes from real life a including a train arriving at the Milan station and a dance on the occasion of a family party.

As well as a studio in Milan, Pacchioni had business premises at Busto Arsizio 35 kilometres north of Milan and Abbiategrasso, formerly written Abbiate Grasso, 22 kilometres from Milan and 38 kilometres from Pavia.

Source: www.piemontemese.it

Pallis & Kotzias, Athens

• P & C Athenes
• P & C Athenes

Pallis & Kotzias, stationers, 8 Ermou Street, Athens (Πάλλης & Κοτζιάς Αθήνα). The history of Athens’ most famous paper shop begins in 1870, when Athanasios Pallis founded the company “Pallis”, a cartographic company, a paper shop and a printing shop in the centre of Athens. Ten years later, in 1880, Pallis co-operated with Georgios Kotzias and the company was renamed accordingly. Their collaboration lasted until 1925. Post-war, the company introduced seasonal items becoming a prestigious grocery store. The KN logo indicates that it was produced by Knackstedt & Naether (qv).

Source: in Newsroom ALTER EGO 30 January 2007

E Pandevant

Charenton-le-Pont, Paris

• E.P.

E Pandevant, 29 av. du Marche, Charenton. Pandevant started a pipemaking business which was continued until the start of WWII as A Pandevant and Roy, advertising everything for the smoker. How this came to include photographs of female celebrities as bromide postcards is explained by the fact that by 1931 they were also making all sorts of articles for bazaars. The output then also included postcards and stands for them, pens, ink, pocket torches, and goggles for car drivers. Early advertisements used a logo of his initials and crossed swords, no doubt a pun on the initials and he added C to the initials he put on his pipes. The style of this card suggests he printed studio portraits of his customers on postcard blanks.

Source: rebornpipes

Enrico Panighetti, Milan, Italy

• Enrico Panighetti, Edit. – Milano

Enrico Panighetti, publisher, Milan published cards of unsigned paintings of Milan. His successors published photocards of locations as far as the Greek islands into the 1930s .

Fred Pansing

• FRED PANSING ILL. POST CARD CO. N.Y.

Fred Pansing (1844 to 1912) was born in Bremen, Germany and went to sea aged 16. Five years later, he settled in Hoboken, New York, working for a time in his brother’s grocery, but always sketching ships and interested in becoming an artist although there is no record of formal art training. Prints of ships were greatly in demand as the era of sail made its transition to the age of steam travel, and Pansing became a successful printmaker for the American Lithographic Company and Knapp & Co. With his technical understanding and artistic skill, he was able to create portraits of steamships, sailing ships, tugs, and paddlewheelers which were widely reproduced as chromolithographs. He also created marine illustrations for Harper’s Weekly, and collaborated with Charles Parsons and Milton Burns, two of America’s foremost marine illustrators and printers. Pansing painted ships of the Fall River and other steamboat lines, his most famous being a series of eighteen portraits of the fleet of the Nantasket Beach Steamboat Company. He occasionally painted in oils, but his oil paintings are rare. Pansing was manager of the Arts Club of Jersey City from 1910 to 1911 and a member of the Hoboken Sketch Club. His many pictures of steamships were used for advertising posters, postcards and travel souvenirs.

In his 1911 painting Olympic/Titanic/Britannic Pansing included a larger compliment of lifeboats than these vessels eventually had.

Paquebots De L’Etat Belge

• PAQUEBOTS DE L’ETAT BELGE LIGNE OSTENDE-DOUVRES Abord du paquebot: Princesse Henriette P.J. Clays

In 1846, the Belgian State Steamship Company already had ships of 14 knots, an enormous speed for the time.

Before the brutal ultimatum of 2 August 1914, Belgium had no military navy. She had, however, under the flag of the State, a core of liners, whose millions of passengers crossed the Channel on the Ostend-Dover route.  In 1914, the company owned ten steamers 300 to 360 feet long, including five paddle ships of 21 to 22 knots and five turbine ships of more than 24 knots. The first bore the names of Princess Henriette, Léopold II, Marie-Henriette, Rapide, Princesse Clémentine; the others, of very recent construction, were: Princess Elisabeth , Jan Breydel , Pieter De Coninck , the City of Liège and the Stad Antwerpen .

These cards also came with address-side in red with a ten centime stamp. Both stamps came pre-printed with the option of ruling out Sunday delivery, which the sender of my card exercised by scoring out the tab at the bottom of the stamp. The card was re-issued with different vessel names.

Ethel Parkinson

• E PARKINSON

Mary Ethel Parkinson (1868 to 1957), painter and illustrator. Born in Hull, about 1880 her family moved to Greenwich, South East London, and, in about 1900, she began to work for CW Faulkner & Co for whom she worked for many years. Faulkner’s connections allowed syndication of her work by Munk of Vienna as early as 1904 and by Dondorf of Germany. Much of her work featured children and/or Holland. Her enthusiasm dwindled after the death of Charles Faulkner in 1915.

Source: Postcards from the Nursery Dawn & Peter Cope (New Cavenish Books 2000) page 188

Pascalis, Moss & Company, London

• P.M.& Co, London
• P.M.& Co, L.
• Pascalis Moss & Co., Photocolor London Views. P.M.& Co.

Pascalis, Moss & Co was the partnership between C.H. Pascalis and Henry Moss. They were early in the field and, by 1900, were operating from 4 & 5, Mason’s Avenue, Basinghall Street, London EC where they imported picture postcards from many European countries. Their 1901 French Actresses series were the first cards posed by actresses sold in the UK. Kirchner cards were so popular that they described them as their chief line. They were listed as Fine Art publishers in James Clegg’s 1903 Clegg’s International Directory of the World’s Book Trade but in the Autumn of 1902, Mr Pascalis had left the company and it become Henry Moss & Company (qv). Pascalis Moss thus become one of the first significant names in postcards to disappear.

Sources: Picture Postcards and their Publishers Anthony Byatt (1978 Golden Age Postcard Books) page 196; Pictures in the Post Richard Carline (1959 Gordon Fraser) page 60; Clegg’s International Directory of Booksellers

The Pathe Cinematograph Company Limited

• The PATHE Cinematograph Co Ld – LONDON – W-C

In 1896 Charles Pathé (1863 to 1957) established the Societe Pathe Freres company which became one of the biggest film production companies the industry has seen. Pathé was a pioneer in the birth of newsreel footage, which in turn became the forerunner of documentary films. The British branch published undivided-backs of stills from the Pathé-Frères’ 1902 film La Vie et Passion de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ.

James Patrick, Edinburgh

• “Castle” Series Post Cards COPYRIGHT PHOTO BY JAMES PATRICK
• CASTLE SERIES POSTCARDS COPYRIGHT PHOTO BY JAMES PATRICK.

James Patrick belonged to a family well-known in fine art, postcard and photographic publishing in Fife and Edinburgh. In 1898 James was the President of the Edinburgh Photographic Society which had been instituted in 1861. He is listed at 75 Comiston Road in the Edinburgh Post Office Directories for 1898 to 1900.

John Patrick & Sons, listed as landscape photographers at 52 Comiston Road, Edinburgh became John Patrick in the 1900 to 1901 directory, suggesting that between the two directories, this was the point at which the son struck out on his own account. A large signed photograph of golfer Tom Morris snr., was photographed by James Patrick and published by George Stewart, also of Edinburgh, with a Certificate of Authenticity.

Not to be confused with: the “Castle” series published by George Stewart (qv)

Sources: St Andrews The Postcard Collection Helen Cook (Amberley Publishing Limited 15 Apr 2016); National Library of Scotland Directories

This card: On the death of Scottish author Sir Walter Scott in 1832, the great and good of Edinburgh came together to agree on a fitting monument to this outstanding Scottish literary figure. In 1836, an architectural competition was launched, inviting designs for an appropriate memorial. Two years later, the trustees approved the design submitted by George Meikle Kemp, and construction began in 1840.

A joiner and carpenter who became skilled as an illustrator, Kemp saw off competition from some of Scotland’s leading architects. Undaunted by the negativity that greeted his selection, Edinburgh’s monument committee pressed ahead with a massive fundraising campaign to build Kemp’s design and purchase the land on which it would be built. As has often been the case with lavish Edinburgh construction projects, costs soared. Having initially raised £7000 to pay for the land, monument and its marble sculpture by Sir John Steell, it soon became clear the finished structure would cost almost twice that.

Kemp died when the monument was only half completed, on the night of 6 March 1844. It is thought he was to have lost his way in very thick fog after visiting his contractor near the old Canal Basin in Fountainbridge. His body was found in the canal one week later. Over 1000 people attended his funeral. His coffin was carried to St Cuthbert’s graveyard by his workmen, who by all accounts, thoroughly respected his humble origins and great depth of knowledge. After Kemp’s death, work continued under the supervision of his brother-in-law, William Bonnar. He proposed an amendment to the height from 176 feet to 200 feet and six inches. For a while there was dissent from outsiders, especially when a rise in costs from £10,000 to £12,000 was forecast. However, when workmen on the project offered two weeks’ labour without pay in order to support Bonnar, the money was found.

This card is notable for a 2 am postmark on Christmas Day.

Sources: Scott Monument; Herald

Leonard Patten

• Leonard Patten

Harry Leonard Batty Patten (1867 to 1947) was active as a painter, etcher and illustrator from the 1880’s. He came from Bournemouth, and as a young man made a large drawing of that town as seen from a boat offshore. He is listed as an exhibitor in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition catalogue for 1889. Patten worked for a number of magazines including the Illustrated London News and the Daily Telegraph. He produced posters for Southern Railways in the 1930s.

Source: Clifford Hall the Painter

Vaughan T. Paul

Penzance, Cornwall, England

• Vaugham* T. Paul’s series, Penzance

* Seems to be a misreading of his signature by the printer.

Vaughan Thornton Paul, photographer and postcard publisher, Morrab Studio, Penzance. Paul published local topographical and ethnographic images, particularly of the fishing industry. In 1909 Paul was present at the burial at sea off Penzance of John Davidson the Scottish poet who pioneered a new idiom and subject matter for twentieth-century verse. Paul was also present at the first flights over Penzance on the evening of Saturday 23 July, 1910. The pilot was the renowned Claude Grahame-White whose purpose was to fly over the three fleets assembled in the bay where they were expected to be informally reviewed by the recently-crowned King George V. It was his intention to show the vulnerability of the Navy to aerial attack. Paul, then working for The Daily Mirror, supported him in this. In 1915 Paul photographed the wreck French ship Olympe near the Lizard.

Source: John Davidson, First of the Moderns: A Literary Biography John Sloan (1995 Clarendon Press) page 285; penwithlit.com;

Paul Suess AG, Dresden, Germany

• Edition “Trianon”
• Edition “Trianon” P.M. Phot.
• P.S a D ERIKA
• P.S. a D
• “ERIKA”

Paul Suess¹¹⁶ AG¹¹⁷, a joint-stock company from 1896 to early 1915. Suess used several rented facilities and by the mid 1890’s had his own factory at 23 Blasewitzer Street, Dresden. In 1901 he moved into an existing factory site in Muegeln/Heidenau at 21 Bismarckstrasse. Paul Suess started with 10 people. In 1907 they had 12 huge litho presses and employed 550 workers. By 1911 there were 725 workers and employees. Early cards up to about 1903-04 show the word “ERIKA” set in capitals. “Erika” stood for heather¹¹⁸. They published some cards with the same numbers under the badge Edition “Trianon”¹¹⁹. Their British details were: Paul Suss A. G., 73, Golden Lane, London, E.G., Christmas Card Publishers. Controller: John W. Woodthorpe, 1, Leadenhall Street, E.G. 20th March, 1916.

Paulton Brothers

Wolverhampton, England

Paulton Brothers, Printers, Wolverhampton. Albert Henry Paulton (born 1867) set up a printing business with his brothers Charles (born 17 April 1865) and Frederick. It was at Wheeler’s Fold in 1892 and, by 1896, at 44 Berry Street nearby. At one stage they had two premises in Berry Street. A programme they printed in 1907 gave their address as Heath Town a district less than a couple of miles east of the city centre.

Paultons produced on a large scale. They printed Wolves programmes and other literature including at least four sets of collectable football cards featuring local team Wolverhampton Wanderers. Albert held shares and was a director of the club for a while. He also was a town alderman and the licensee of the Molyneux Hotel throughout WWI.

Paultons produced the free souvenir programme for the first cycle race been London and Holyhead which took place on 9 June 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain.

Désiré Pavia

Tunis & Bizerte, Tunisia

• Désiré Pavia, Phot.-edit., Bizerte

Désiré Pavia, (born 1874) photographer and postcard publisher, Tunis & Bizerte. In 1890, Pavia’s uncle, photographer Francisco Soler (qv) transferred his studio from Oran, Algeria to Avenue de France, Tunis. In the same year, Oran-born Pavia moved to Tunisia. In 1900 Pavia joined his uncle. They were joined by Pavia’s brother Adrien and the brothers took over the workshop mostly selling views and types of Tunisia, succeeding to the business in 1908. From 1902, they published postcards, Pavia from Bizerte, a coastal town 66 kilometres north-west of the capital. The Pavia brothers produced a report on the Moussac family stud farm in 1915. They photographed official ceremonies in Tunisia until 1930.

Source: Photographes d’Afrique;

Gilbert Morris Payne

• G M Payne

Gilbert Morris “Bertie” Payne (1879 to 1947) was born in Cardiff and by 1901 had moved to London where he carried out his work. He was a prolific artist and cartoonist and one of a family of artists, all of whom considered him to be the most gifted. He was the older brother of A. B. Payne, who created the comic strip Pip, Squeak and Wilfred in the Daily Mirror. Their father, Joseph, was a cabinet maker. Payne produced many humorous paintings that were published as postcards by Gale & Polden. Sailors chasing the fair sex seems to have been a recurrent theme. In the early 1900s he drew comics including Lot-o’-Fun, Comic Cuts, Puck, Jester and Wonder. He also illustrated story papers, including Chums and Boys of Our Empire, and drew cartoons for Punch. He also produced more serious work of a topical nature for The Army Graphic, Autocar, The Motor, and many other publications.

Source: bearalley.blogspot.com; ukcomics.fandom.com

G. B. Pedrocchi

Buenos Aires, Argentina

• G. B. Pedrocchi – Editor – Buenos Aires – Berlin

A postcard publisher of Italian origin, Pedrocci published photographs by H.G. Olds (qv). In 1912 Pedrocchi moved with his family back to Italy where he died in 1930. His son Federico became a well known comic book artist and writer in Italy.

Source: wikipedia Federico Pedrocci

Raimondo Pellegrini – Parma

• Raimondo Pellegrini – Parma

Raimondo Pellegrini, printer and publisher and bookseller, Borgo del Correggio, Parma. In 1903 he published Doctor Acest Oliari’s book Malaria in the province of Parma and On a case of Nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys) by Professor L Zoja.

Between 1927 and 1931 R. Pellegrini was a director of the bimonthly journal Fascist Archive of Political Medicine which was published in Parma and printed by the Parma Printing Cooperative. A compendium of “healthy and vigorous fascist life”, this journal was more political propaganda than medical bulletin. It dealt not so much with medical issues as what is now called Public Hygiene, then referred to as “political medicine”. This R Pellegrini wrote Procured abortions as a factor limiting birth rates in Germany which was published in 1925 in the journal Social Defence (Difesa Sociale) and articles on population policy in the Fascist Archive. It is something of a conjecture that the person involved in the journal is the postcard publisher. Source: Storia di ieri. I PERIODICI

The Pencarbon Company Limited, Leicester, England

• The Pencarbon Co., Ltd., Leicester

The Pencarbon Company Limited, carbon-paper makers, 184 London Road, Leicester. Carbon paper seems to have been simultaneously invented in about 1806 by an Englishman named Ralph Wedgwood and Italian Pellegrino Turri. In 1902 and 1903, the company advertised:

The most time-saving invention of recent years. The simple act of writing produces a perfect copy. No Water No Brush No Work No Time No Mess No Press! Any Ink! Almost any Paper! Use your own letter paper or memo;.

This excerpt from The Optical Lantern and Cinematograph Journal of 1905 may help explain their success:

A Useful Letter Copying Book for Lanternists. — The Pencarbon Company, Ltd … has sent us one of their Pencarbon Copy Books, which we find exceedingly useful and handy to use. Letter paper is inserted under the patent holder which is supplied with every book, and is ready for use. The letter to be copied is written in the ordinary way with pen and ink. After writing and removing the paper a perfect copy is found. Unlike ordinary carbon copying books, there is nothing on the back of the original to show that the letter has been copied, and the original letter is sent, the carbon copy being retained for reference. We can heartily recommend lanternists to use this system, which we much prefer to using a press and book with leaves that have to be damped. It is cleaner, handier, and very much less expensive.

By 1911 Pencarbon had clearly become a byeword for its product

(a) The police-station officer shall prepare the Despatch of required number of copies of the Hue and Cry notices notices, by pencarbon paper and despatch them to the stations, etc., mentioned in their lists.

THE BENGAL POLICE MANUAL, 1911

The company also traded in Europe, Australia and South Africa:

The ZANETIC BRAND of TYPECARBON is the supreme embodiment of all the practical excellencies required by business houses. For general commercial use it’s easily the most economical. Samples of this and other grades on application to the Makers THE PENCARBON CO, LTD., Zanetic Works, Duncan Road, Leicester, England, who make the celebrated Zanetic Penduplicating Paper. Any dealer can supply

South Africa Mining and Engineering Journal ^The Only Weekly Mining Paper in the Continent of Africa. JOHANNESBURG, TRANSVAAL, SATURDAY 4 October 1919.

The edition of the Paris Journal of 29 June 1919 announcing the signing at Versailles of the peace treaty ending WWI also carried an advertisment for Zanetic carbon paper.

Pension Villa Concordia

Davos, Switzerland

• PENSION VILLA CONCORDIA * DAVOS DORF.

Pension Villa Concordia Promenade 124, Davos, an Alpine resort town and a municipality in the Prättigau/Davos Region in the canton of Graubünden.

The Villa Concordia,was built in 1895 as a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients. In the 1920s it was run by the Ilanz Sisters of St. Joseph. The Congregation of the Ilanz Dominican Sisters traces its origins back to St. Joseph’s Institute, founded with an educational remit at Ilanz, in 1865. Ilanz is a town seventy kilometres west of Davos, also in the canton of Graubünden.

During the first half of the twentieth century. the sisters provided residential care homes for the frail and elderly in Sedrun, Trun and Davos where the facility conntinued to serve as a convalescent home until about 1950 when the house was rebuilt as a guesthouse.

With the increase in tourism, the hotel was managed as a 2 star hotel in 1956. In 1985, the business was run as a 3 star hotel and it continues as the family-run Hotel Concordia

W Picker, the newsagent and bookseller in Davos also published cards of the Pension.

Peres Blancs, Jerusalem.

Peres blancs Ste Anne, Jerusalem.

The White Fathers (French: Pères Blancs), officially the Missionaries of Africa are a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life. Founded in 1868 by then Archbishop of Algiers Charles-Martial Allemand-Lavigerie. The society focuses on evangelism and education, mostly in Africa. In 2021, there were 1428 members of the Missionaries of Africa of 36 nationalities, working in 42 countries, in 217 communities.

The Sainte-Anne church is a Romanesque building from the 12th century. The church is located on the presumed site of the house of Anne and Joachim, birthplace of the Virgin Mary. It was rebuilt in 1140 by the Crusaders on the ruins of the old Byzantine building. The building consists of a central nave, two side naves (lower) and a transept. The crossing of the nave and the transept is surmounted by a dome.

After the capture of the city by Saladin it was transformed into a Koranic school which preserved it. After the Crimean War the building was offered to the French and was entrusted to the White Fathers who arrived there in 1878.

The White Fathers published photocards of their church and other biblical sites of Jerusalem into the divided-back era.

Sources: peres-blancs; wikipedia

Jordao da Luz Perestrello

• J. Perestrello, Photographer

Jordao da Luz Perestrello, photographer. Madeiran Perestrello was the first to produce images for tourists on his home island. Between 1900 and 1909, Perestrello settled in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He was a good photographer and got some beautiful views on Gran Canaria, Tenerife and La Palma including a striking panorama of the Tenerife shore. He published topographical and ethnographical cards into the divided-back era. In 1904 to 05 Perestrello was a first master of ceremonies in the local Freemasons.

In 1903 Perestrello supported Dr David Fairchild (1869 to 1954) in the first of four field trips to the Canary Islands. Dr Fairchild’s visits were the first extensive plant exploration expeditions ever undertaken by United States botanists in the Canaries.

On 15 May 1905 Perestrello photographed the Numancia, an armoured frigate bought from France during the 1860s for service with the Royal Spanish Navy anchored at the tip of the Santa Catalina Pier at Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

María De Los Santos García Felguera suggests that Perestrello published as his own the photographic postcards made by Joaquín González Espinosa (1892 to 1955), the owner of the Postal Express studio. She also comments on his habit of selling postcards from one place as if they were from another. Both these practices seem to have been widespread .

This card was issued in monochrome and variously coloured, numbered and described in different cards – clear evidence of the practice of copying. There seems to be some consensus that the washerwoman featured was from Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

Source: Una Imagen de Tenerife en Turín:Los Álbumes Fotográficosde La Biblioteca Real María De Los Santos García Felguera

Perkins, Son & Venimore

Lewisham, London

• P.S.& V. Lewisham

Perkins, Son & Venimore, photographers, 10 Weardale Road & Lee High Road, Lewisham. William Perkins, William Wood Perkins & Andrew Venimore were well-respected photographers in SE London.

Ernest Peters, Cape Town

• E. Peters, Cape Town

South African photographer Ernest Peters had a studio at 3 Castle Street listed in the 1902 Voters Roll of Cape Town. He produced a cabinet card of actor musician Auguste van Biene (16 May 1849 to 23 January 1913) as an art photo. Van Biene toured to South Africa towards the end of his life. Peters was also credited with a photograph of the University of Cape Town second rugby team in 1935. He published topographical postcards of South Africa which were presumably his own photographs.

Petit Parisien

• Collection du PETIT PARISIEN

Le Petit Parisien was a prominent French newspaper during the French Third Republic, published between 1876 and 1944. In 1889 it introduced pictures through an illustrated supplement. During the Second World War it was the official voice of the Vichy regime and it didn’t survive its collaboration. My card is of a monochrome photograph of Parisian landmarks forming a numbered series running from 1 into double figures which was also published as divided backs. There are also similarly-numbered series on divided-backs of coloured images of glamorous female models including L’EVENTAIL JAPONAIS (The Japanese Fan) and L’EVENTAIL LOUIS XV and, in a black and white photographic series, NOS AVIATEURS and comic and patriotic series.

Source: France Archives

Hermann Petzsch

Waldheim, Saxony, Germany

• Verlag von Hermann Petzsch, Waldheim i. S.

Franz Hermann Petzsch (died by 1936) trained as a bookbinder and then went on an eight-year hike, which he spent in the towns of Pulsnitz, Meissen, Spandau and Gera. In September 1887 he started his own business at 13 Schloßstraße, Waldheim.

The business extended to paper by Mey & Edlich, fashion accessories and leatherware. Petzsch’s local topographical photocards were elaborately framed by decorations and embellishments.

Jacobo Peuser

Buenos Aires, Argentina

• J. PEUSER BS. AS.

Jacobo Peuser, (born 28 November 1843), printer, publisher and card retailer. German-born Peuser arrived in Argentina in 1855, aged 12 and worked in graphics workshops as a youngster. In April 1867 he opened a small bookshop in Buenos Aires. Such was his passion for graphic arts that the following year he purchased larger premises and his business continued to grow. From 28 February 1875 he published the German Argentine Weekly, the first newspaper written in that language to appear in the country. The same year, he with others proposed the first Industrial Exhibition which opened in Buenos Aires in 1877. That year, he moved his establishment to 98 San Martín Street. By the 1890s, book publishing, book-binding and colour lithographic printing were the primary business activities and several medals had been won. In 1896 he printed Map of the telegraphic lines of the Argentine Republic for Pedro Lopez. The business was involved in the importation of foreign-manufactured playing cards into Argentina from the 1920s to the 50s.

Source: The World of Playing Cards

This card bears greetings for 1903. Felicitas Guerrero (1846 to 1872) came from a wealthy middle-class family of 11 children. Her father was of Andalusian origin and her mother of German ancestry. Felicitas was considered the most beautiful woman in Argentina. At 18, she was married against her will to a very rich man 32 years older than her. He died in 1870 after having two children with her. Her beauty and money interested suitors, one of whom, on rejection shot and killed her in 1872. The reaction was so strong in Buenos Aires that her parents had this church built by Ernesto Bunge in 1876. Iglesia Santa Felicitas is ranked 220 of 870 things to do in Buenos Aires on tripadvisor.

Cecilia Pfaff

• C. PFAFF

Cäcilie Graf-Pfaff (5 August 1868 to 8 July 1939) was a German painter and printmaker. Born Cäcilie Pfaff, in Erlangen in Bavaria where she spent her childhood. At the age of twelve she received painting lessons and at the age of sixteen she was allowed to move to Munich to study art. There she studied between 1885 and 1888. She married the painter Wilhelm Bader but they divorced. She married a second time in 1902 to the Freiburg painter Oskar Graf and from then on called herself Graf-Pfaff. They developed together in the fields of etching and graphics. Pfaff’ painted city pictures of Italy and Meersburg on Lake Constance. Her pictures show a tendency towards poetic, dreamy conceptions.

Attribution of the C PFAFF cards to this artist is rather speculative; The signature on C PFAFF pictures is very different from the signature Graf-Pfaff used after her second marriage but there is a similarity in the style of some of her paintings to the large number of topographical paintings of Germany bearing the signature C PFAFF.

Source: wikipedia Cäcilie Graf-Pfaff

T. Pfaff, Neuchatel, Switzerland

• Edit. T. Pfaff, Neuchatel, (Suisse)

In the Feuille D’Avis de Neuchatel newspaper of 4 November 1905 Mr. and Mrs. T. Pfaff of The Rochettes, 11 Rolling Stone Passage, Neuchatel advertised To those who doubt, to those who suffer, to those who seek the Truth Interviews on Modern Spiritualism Monday and Thursday of each week… Private tutorials, on request on other days. These interviews are free. It’s clear from this how Pfaff spent his money. There is clue as to how he made it in the words horlogerie soignée (Smart Watches) included after his name on a card of A Engelberg recently for sale. Hermann Pfaff & Cie of 7 Place Purry Neuchatel advertised his watch repair shop and jewellery shop up to seven times in a number of editions of the local paper in 1902 and for many years thereafter. On 26 January 1928, the same journal devoted nearly a column to the arrest of one of the burglars of the Pfaff jewelery shop. On 30 April 1942 the Swiss Clockmakers Federation recorded that Longines marked the fact that three of the watchmakers present at the festival including Pfaff had been customers for 50 years. Around 1952 Collet in Geneva made a Sterling silver coffee box for Pfaff. Like other local Swiss publishers, his cards seem to have been produced for him by JPN.

Source: Feuille D’Avis de Neuchatel 4 August 1902; Feuille D’Avis de Neuchatel 26 January 1928; La Federation Horlogere 30 April 1942

Philadelphia Postalcard Company

Philadelphia, PA, USA

• PHILA POST CARD CO in or below the image and in the yoke of the bell logo on the address side.
• Philadelphia Postalcard Co., Philadelphia, Pa. and bell logo as above;
• Philadelphia Postalcard Co., Philadelphia, Pa.
• PHILA POST CARD CO in or below the image logo on the address side: eagle in flight with arrows in one claw and flowering plant in the other.
• logo on the address side: eagle in flight with arrows in one claw and flowering plant in the other.

Philadelphia Postalcard Co, publishers and importers of all kinds of souvenir post cards, advertising novelties and printed things. Initially at 729 Filbert Street, in 1909 they were at 1034 Arch Street with Bell and Keystone telephones. Their Cable Address was Evandoug Philadelphia. Local photographer Frank Burd took over the company in the late 20^th century and published Philadelphia Illustrated in 1989, a Deluxe Souvenir Book of 116 Photographs.

This card: Pennsylvania Station (normally abbreviated Penn Station) is a name applied by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) to several of its grand passenger terminals. In the early 20th century different railroad companies typically used different stations, especially in major cities or towns, so the station usually took the name of the company.

The original station was designed by Wilson Brothers & Company under authority of the old Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad and completed in 1881. It was one of the first steel-framed buildings in the United States to use masonry not as structure, but as a curtain wall as modern-designed skyscrapers do. The station was dramatically expanded by renowned Philadelphia architect Frank Furness in 1892 to 93. Wilson Brothers designed a new train shed in 1892, that was constructed high over the existing sheds, which were subsequently demolished. The new shed had the largest single span of any station roof in the world – 306 ft (91 m). In 1894 the PRR moved its headquarters from Fourth Street to the office building above the station. The train shed suffered a massive 1923 fire, and was demolished. The station itself was demolished in 1953, a year after train service to it had ceased. Source: wikipedia Broad Street Station Philadelphia

R. Phillips, Peebles, Scotland.

• R. Phillips, Peebles.

In 1889 Robert Phillips of Peebles Old Town was listed in the linen and woollen trade. In the 1900 Edinburgh and South of Scotland Trades’ Directory Robert Phillips was listed under Fancy Repositories at 11 High Street.

Source: The Royal Burgh of Peebles in the nineteenth century : the impact of a locally organised railway on a moribund Scottish county town. John Stuart Duncan (2005 PhD thesis The Open University).

Edwin Grattan Phillipse

• Phillipse Photo
• [Photo, Phillipse.
• PHILLIPSE PHOTO

Edwin Grattan Phillipse worked as a photographer at High Street, Ilfracombe in September 1896. Phillipse is credited for the photographs on undivided cards published by Twiss and Ingram Clark & Company (qv) in Ilfracombe. Grattan Phillipse KSI (Knight Companion of the Order of the Star of India) produced divided backs from Royal Kingsley Studios, Ilfracombe. Other divided backs bore to be published by Phillipse & Lees, Ilfracombe. This was a partnership between Phillipse and Ernest Harold Lees, as photographers and fine art publishers at 46, High Street and 12 The Promenade, Ilfracombe. The partnership was dissolved from 31 December 1920. Phillipse continued the business on his own account.

Source: The National Archives

Photo & Art Postal Card Company, New York

• PHOTO & ART P Cd CO., N.Y.
• PHOTO & ART P. C. CO. N.Y.
• Photo- & Art. Postal-Card Co. N.-Y.

Photo & Art Postal Card Company, 444 Broadway, New York, a publisher of view-cards depicting the mid-Atlantic region with a predominance of scenes from greater New York and Long Island. Their early cards were printed in tinted halftones and their later cards as black & white collotypes. Some of their cards are marked CT Photochrom, an indication they were produced by by Curt Teich (qv).

Photochemie, Berlin

• PH in triangle with curved sides

Photochemie, SWII Berlin published Berlin. Founded around 1905, Photochemie became a big producer of kitsch and greeting cards and studio photographs of celebrities, many by Alexander Binder. Binder died in 1929 but new photo cards bearing his signature continued to be published until 1937. The Cabinet Card Gallery suggests that the real photographer of these new postcards was Hubs Floeter (1910 to 1974) who was employed at the studio as an operator. 

Photochemie published photographs of current events during World War I, one showing pieces of a Russian airplane which was captured by German forces and another of Spartacist prisoners. The Spartacist uprising (also known as the January uprising), was a general strike and armed battles accompanying it in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. Germany was in the middle of a post-war revolution, and two of the perceived paths forward were social democracy and a council republic similar to the one which had been established by the Bolsheviks in Russia.

In 1950 Photochemie published a photograph of Alexanderplatz, then in East Berlin.

Photochrom Company Limited, London and Tunbridge Wells

• bear logo Photochrom Co., Ltd., London
• Photochrom written in corner of picture

Photochrom Company Limited, London originated in Switzerland and was registered in December 1896. It quickly expanded by acquiring two English postcard companies and a well-equipped factory in Tunbridge Wells. Photographer Carl Norman, the principal of one of the acquisitions, became technical manager, living in Tunbridge Wells, until 1908. By 1900, view-cards of most towns in Britain were on sale and, by 1903, they claimed to hold a quarter of a million negatives:

The publishers of this Guide – The Photochrom Co., Ltd, 121 Cheapside, London, E.C. are the largest producers of photographs in all processes in the world. 250,00 Negatives. Color Photgraphy Views and Post Cards. Local Agents in Every Town.

Advertisement on the back of Notes on the Cathedrals Llandaff (1903) pamphlet.

Picture Postcard Annual 2020 records a card postmarked 29 March 1902. At the 1905 Earl’s Court Postcard Exhibition Photochrom cards won a gold and two silver medals. Many current events were featured including the arrest of Mrs Pankhurst in 1908. Perhaps their most famous series was the Celesque series. This was a type of early offset-lithographic postcard. They were untypical for their time, printed in a distinctive red yellow and blue palette. They also published special commissions for railway companies including a fine series of places on the routes of the Midland Railway for that company. Divided-back versions of the cards featured in the North British & Midland Railway stand at the Scottish National Exhibition in Edinburgh in 1908.

Source: Picture Postcards and their Publishers Anthony Byatt 1978 Golden Age Postcard Books page 200; Edinphoto; flickr

Photoelectrotype Engraving Company

New York

• PHOTO-ELECTROTYPE ENGRAVING COMPANY N.Y.

Photoelectrotype Engraving Company, New York published Private Mailing Cards of photographs some of which credit Loeffler (qv). The Ornithologists’ and Oologists’ semi-annual of 1889 carried an advertisement by the PHOTOELECTRIC ENGRAVING COMPANY, Snow Building, SYRACUSE, N. Y. H. A. CARHART, Manager offering A LARGE NUMBER OF BIRD-CUTS ON HAND. SEND FOR LIST. Printing and Electrotyping to Order. Oology is the branch of ornithology concerned with the study of birds’ eggs

Photoglob Company

Zurich, Switzerland

• EDITION PHOTOGLOB Co. ZURICH
• EDITION PHOTOGLOB CO. ZÜRICH
• P.Z.

Founded on 1 June 1889 under the name Photochrom & Company, Zurich as a sales company of art institute Orell Füssli AG, the name Photoglob was adopted on 27 September 1895 when they merged with Schröder & Co. to become a limited company in Zurich with share capital CHF 2 million and headquarters at 3 Bärengasse. Orell Füssli had developed a process called photochromy which allowed Photoglob to publish photographic cards in a brilliant colour that proved highly popular. Photoglob used a globe logo with the letters PZ (Photoglob Zurich) in it. In Spain they also used the letters PZ. They continue in business as publishers of Swiss topographical cards. Another of their cards here.

Source: Buch Zentrum

Photographie des Arts

Lausanne, Switzerland

• Photographie des Arts, Lausanne

Photographie des Arts, 8 Place Bel-Air, Lausanne. Photographer Simon Pittier published postcards under the name of Photography of the Arts in Nyon VD (canton of Vaud in Switzerland) from around 1890 and Lausanne VD around 1902. He published local topographicals into the divided-back era. Many of his cards were photographs of historical monuments, churches and castles taken between 1904 and 1907.

Source: photoCH; Cart’info Bulletin d’information de la Société Romande de Cartophilie January 2018

The Phototype Company

Mumbai, India

• The Phototype Co, Bombay
• The Phototype Coy. Bombay.

A postcard industry quickly established in India once the market had been opened up for privately published postcards. Every major city had one or more publishing company, and many of these were Indian owned. These companies also sold their cards in the wider region. Bombay had Clifton and Co. (qv), as well as the Phototype Company and Ravi Varma Press. Phototype’s postcards were printed in Germany and Luxembourg. The company had wide-ranging interests including naughty women and women at their toilet as well as cards of religious stories. These not only served the Anglo-Indian community and tourists, but catered for the Indian market.

Source: Indians in view The representation of British Indians in magic lantern presentations, films and on postcards, 1870–1915 Janna Adriana Siebenga; India by Design: Colonial History and Cultural Display University of California Press, 6 Nov 2007 By Saloni Mathur page 115

Max Pichler

Schwetzingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

• Verlag von Max Pichler, Schwetzingen.

Max Pichler, stationer, printer and publisher, 9 Mannheimer Strasse, Schwetzingen. In 1880 Pichler founded the Schwetzinger Zeitung, the town’s first newspaper which in 1882 he was editing, printing and publishing on his own. The Technoseum in Mannheim has his press. In 1897 Pichler printed and published The latest guide through the castle gardens in Schwetzingen with brief historical remarks and a plan of the garden by Otto Mechling, a publication still going twenty years later. In 1909 Flugsport magazine: aviation, ballooning, airships edited by Oskar Ursinus recorded that Pichler had patented an airship rudder in March that year, no doubt following up the success of the previous year’s patent of a device for station-by-station aviation using tethered balloons. Pichler published monochrome topographicals of the town, some in elaborate art nouveau framing. In 1900 he earned a silver medal in the Paris World Exhibition for a collection of postcards of the palace garden.

Source: Schwetzingen: Stadt und Leute Frank-Uwe Betz 2001

Pictorial Stationery Company Limited, London

• PEACOCK BRAND TRADE MARK in bird illustration between the words POST and CARD.
• PEACOCK BRAND TRADE MARK in bird illustration between the words POST and CARD. “AUTOCHROM” COLOUR PHOTO) POSTCARD.PICTORIAL STATIONERY CO. LTD. LONDON

Pictorial Stationery Company Limited was founded in 1897 and moved to 23 Moorfields, London in 1902. A publisher of postcards and other lithographic printed materials, the company was expressly started to introduce novel and artistic postcards … into England. Once they began printing standard-sized cards in 1902 they were issued under a variety of different trade names. They published postcards under many names (including Peacock) until 1908. Picture Postcard Annual 2020 records court-size cards from 8 August 1897 and a Peacock card postmarked 29 March 1901. Their Autochrom series were of tinted halftones. Other types of cards included Pictorcrom, Black Frame, Stylochrom, Platino Photo, and Platino-Frosted. Most of these cards depicted views with some of them being artist-drawn.

A guide to Peacock Brand cards is here.

Picture Postcard Company Limited, London

• Picture Postcard Co., Ltd., 6 Drapers Gardens, London, E.C.

Picture Postcard Company Limited, postcard publishers, 6 Drapers Gardens, London, E.C. This short-lived company, operated for two years 1899 to 1901 producing court and then standard size cards is best known for a series of advertising cards for railway companies, with views of places served by the company.

Pictorial Post-Card Company, Ottawa, Canada

• Picture Post Card Co., Ottawa

Picture Post Card Co., Ottawa. In 1904, the journal Bookseller &. Stationer reported that The Pictorial Post-Card Co., of Ottawa, has sent samples of their Imperial series of cards. The productions are of high grade both in the matter of illustrations and printing, and are on good stock. The Imperial Series are numbered topographicals and identify the publisher as above. Although the company had a factory in Ottawa, these cards bore the trade mark of Hartmann (qv). The journal went on to describe the company as one of the most enterprising of the Canadian makers of pictorial cards. Its specialty is high-class collotype work, and its range covers several hundred subjects, comprising the best views of Quebec, Montreal. Ottawa, Toronto, and other leading Canadian cities; scenes at Ste. Anne de Beaupre, and typical subjects. Special sets of shooting, fishing and sporting scenes are in preparation. This company also carries imported lines of colored fancy postcards and Christmas postcards, as well as a range of postcard albums and display stands. Their trade for June has been brisk. One order booked called for 200,000 cards, a splendid sale for this country.

Francesco Pineider, Florence, Italy

• Francesco Pineider Edit. Firenze

Francesco Pineider opened his first shop in 1774 producing exclusive hand-engraved personalized paper. Pineider soon became the stationer of choice for the European bourgeoisie who appreciated the uniqueness of its products and asked for made-to-order visiting cards and writing paper with elegant embossed characters, coats of arms and escutcheons engraved in gold, using a technique perfected by Renaissance goldsmiths. They are still in business selling up-market paper and pens without a mention of postcards. In 1906 Pineider published a guide to Florence which sold for one lira. His addresses at that stage were Piazza della Signoria and Via Cerretani, Palazzo Arcivescovile – a row of shops in the Archbishop’s Palace. Their postcards included reproductions of artworks in the Uffizi and the National Museum.

Source: stilografica.it; tuttatoscana.net

Emil Pinkau, Leipzig, Germany

• Registered Lith. by Emil Pinkau, Leipzig, Germany

The Emil Pinkau Lithographic Art Institute was founded on 1 October 1873 at 19 Brüderstraße, Leipzig. In addition to business printed materials and, later, reproductions of old masters for art books and portfolios, the company specialised in postcards as early as the late 1870s, making it one of the earliest manufacturers in this field.

Emil Pinkau (1850 to 1922) started without capital and could only gradually equip his factory; his first high-speed lithographic press was not purchased until 1883. For weeks Pinkau worked both day and every other night. Expansion of the company prompted several moves from 1877 onwards until a large new factory building with its own railway connection was built in 1898 at the corner of 15 Wittenberger Strasse and 13 Dessauer Strasse. This, in turn, was expanded in 1906 and 1910.

Pinkau specialized early on in photolithographic views – initially Leporello albums, popular books of photographs in a concertina format. The high quality of Pinkau’s photolithographic work is marked by the Grand State Prize the company received for Leporello albums in 1893 at the World Exhibition in Chicago.

Pinkau’s Lithographic Art Institute soon made a name for itself in the printing of postcards. Pinkau was one of the first to recognize the potential of this emerging mass medium. On a 1911 letterhead he advertised: Specialty since 1879, large print runs of viewing postcards. Pinkau was always focussed on printing and, indeed, the 1911 letterhead explicitly states: No publisher – only fabrication.

As early as 1902, Johannes Pinkau (1879 to 1958), Emil Pinkau’s eldest son, joined the company as technical manager and many of the innovations and technical advancements in the following years can be traced to his initiative. In 1904 Pinkau converted his sole proprietorship into a stock corporation, Emil Pinkau & Co AG. In 1903, letterheads recorded 16 high-speed presses, 40 auxiliary machines and in 1911 32 high-speed presses, 150 auxiliary machines. The number of employees rose from 200 in 1904 to 450 in 1911.

In 1909 Dr. Trenkler & Co AG, which was one of the biggest competitors in the field of postcards sold off its publishing side and in 1938 Emil Pinkau AG claimed most of the Trenkler-Verlag profits.

Source: wikipedia: Emile Pinkau

Gaston Piprot, Paris

• solid 5-point star in the corner of the photograph and on the address side beside a series number

Gaston Piprot (1866 to 1921) French photographer, industrialist, publisher of illustrated postcards, creator of the star brand. Piprot printed and published many of Professor Stebbing‘s (qv) theatrical portraits under his Etoile or Star branding. The term Emaillographie on some of his cards refers to a process of Piprot’s that seems to have been a glacé, or glaze applied to the surface of the print to add depth and brilliance to the colour. He published a series of posed photographs by Henri Manuel (qv) under the title Napoleon Intime. In 1923 Piprot was président of the Chambre syndicale de la carte postale of the Société Française De Photographie (President of the Postcard Chamber of the French Photographic Society).

Sources: Bulletin de la Société française de photographie; wikipedia: Gaston Piprot; Red Poulaine

Pistolesi Printing House, Rome

• Tip Pistoles

Pistolesi printing company, Rome. In the middle of the nineteenth century Erasmo Pistolesi (1770 to 1860) wrote, published and printed a guide to the Vatican in several volumes. In 1900 published Mia Madre by L Montanari. The new road Largo Erasmo Pistolesi is located in the Cap Roma area. The company’s poscards were monochrom photographs of Rome.

Pita & Catalano

Buenos Aires, Argentina

• Editores Pita & Catalano

Pita & Catalano was a publishing house in Buenos Aires that produced colourised real photograph postcards at the beginning of the twentieth century. Italians Pita and Catalano produced topographical undivided-backs of photographs by H G Olds, the Boote brothers, the Buenos Aires photographer Eugenio Avanzi and Jacobo Peuser‘s early photography of Buenos Aires before he published his own postcards.

Source: Eugenio Avanzi: photographs and postcards about Buenos Aires Abel Alexander

Ernest Pittier

Annecy, Haute-Savoie, France.

• Pittier, Phot.-edit. Annecy
• PP above A Pittier, Phot.-edit. Annecy

Ernest Edmond Constant Pittier (6 August 1866 to 5 May 1953) photographer, publisher of photographs and postcards. In 1897 he succeeded his father, photographer and photo editor Auguste Pittier in his business at the Quai de la Tournette in Annecy. There he worked in collaboration with his mother, Julie Chanel, and his second wife Berthe Barbey. In 1910 he transferred the studio to 38 rue des Marquisats, Annecy. In 1922 Pittier left Annecy. The departmental archives of Haute-Savoie hold 2722 Pittier postcards published between 1899 and 1922 from shots taken between 1890 and 1909 by Auguste and Ernest.

Source: Red Poulaine

P. J. Plant, Washington D.C.

• P.J.PLANT WASHINGTON D.C.

P.J. Plant, Washington D.C. Card publisher known for humorous montage images most notable perhaps for the address side which by lowered the words POST CARD to create a space which was marked THE SPACE ABOVE IS RESERVED FOR POSTMARK. Others, including M. Reider of Los Angeles, also used this format which echoed the official one-cent postal card issued in March 1902 with a vignette of President McKinley in lieu of President Jefferson’s portrait.

Plâté & Company

Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Plâté & Co
• A.W.A. Platé & Co.

Plâté & Company, photographers founded in 1890 by A. W. A. and Clara Plâté in a small studio in the Bristol Hotel, Colombo. In 1892 they moved to larger premises in Colpetty, Colombo. In 1907 Arnold Wright wrote that the Colpetty studio and office practically represent the headquarters of the firm, and here are located extensive work-rooms, dark-rooms, show-rooms and other adjuncts to a photographic establishment, in addition to the spacious studio, reckoned to be one of the finest in the east. The firm became a limited private company in 1900 and the business was enlarged to concentrate on supplying photographic apparatus and material. In 1907 the firm had an annual output of half a million postcards. They probably took over the stock of Skeen and Company. They are still trading, in a marvellous building constructed largely from antique timbers from their previous premises. Unfortunately, when they moved, all their old stock was pulped.

Source: email 14 February 2022 from Gary Watson, Victoria, Australia; Twentieth century impressions of Ceylon(London, 1907); A Biographical Dictionary of 19th Century Photographers in South and South-East Asia John Falconer, British Library; Trans Asia Photography

E. Plathen & Company, Edinburgh

• E. Plathen & Co. [No card held]

Listed in the Edinburgh Post Office Directory for 1898 to 1899 as illustrated postcard publishers at 1 Broughton Place Edinburgh – the only such listing. Next year they were at 19 East Trinity Road.

The Platinachrome Company

New York

• The Platinachrome Co. N.Y. P in sun logo

In addition to local topographicals, Platinachrome’s cards often featured contemporary culture; In 1905 they published a colour halftone postcard of a scene from Kirke La Shelle’s production of Paul Armstrong’s play Heir to the Hoorah which was then touring, after having played in New York. In 1907, they produced scenes from the stage productions of The Belle of Mayfair and Brewster’s Millions. Also in the divided-back era, the company produced a series of cards by artist Earl Christy each featuring one or a pair of female fans/cheerleaders for a particular American College football team. They also joined in the trend for state and national loyalties to be illustrated by images of the fair sex. Their countries series was drawn by G. Howard Hilder.

Franz Plentl Sons, Graz, Austria

• PLENTL MARY MILL GRAZ-CAIRO

Franz Plentl Sons were founded in Graz in 1838 as a paper-goods factory, later commercial printers before expanding to fashion accessories. The mill was called “Mary Mill” after the founder’s wife Maria. Plentl were to the fore in the introduction of embossed visitor cards. In 1907, they were at 12 Traungauergasse and the publishers of one of the 78 newspapers then published in Styria. My elegantly-designed cards were clearly published for Egyptian market but front and back are pure Austria of the turn of the century. This one credits Bachmann (qv) for the photograph.

Source: Druck Museum

Ploy & Müller, Linz, Austria

• Ploy & Müller, Linz a D

Ploy & Müller was a paper-trading institution on Linz’s main square, which closed in 2003 after 125 years. In 1914 Ploy & Müller were at 9 Schmidtorstraße. Peter (13 October 1941 to 21 June 2017) and Helga Hermann ran the shop for many years.

F. W. Poecker, New Jersey, USA.

• F. W. Poecker, Stationer

Frederick William Poecker, Stationer, Upper Montclair, New Jersey, published photocards of Montclair N.J. In 1909, Poecker was one of the prominent dealers from whom the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper could be obtained. On 20 October 1904 the New York Times reported from Montclair under the heading ACCUSED OF KILLING CHILD.; Young Montclair Girl Arrested — Tired of Being Nurse, Police Say that Alice Klingenberg, fourteen years old, the sister of Mrs. William Poecker, who conducts a newspaper and stationery store at Upper Montclair, was arrested here to-night, and will be arraigned in court to-morrow as a suspicious person. On 21 October, the San Francisco Call reported that Mrs Poecker had left her six week old daughter in her sister’s care to let her take charge of the store during the noon hour while he went home for dinner. Unsurprisingly, Alice was not a member of the household in the 1910 census though their father and two surviving daughters were.

Eduardo Polack, Lima, Peru.

• Eduardo Polack, Lima (Peru).

Julio Eduardo Polack-Schneider (1870 to 1936), photographer, had a small novelty and postage stamp shop in Lima on Calle de Los Huérfanos. He is best known for his photographs of Lima which were coloured in Germany and many printed as postcards. He was associated with G. Morgenroth, whose company also published Polack-Schneider’s photographs as postcards.

Source: Dumbarton Oaks

This card: Tacna is a city in southern Peru and the regional capital of the Tacna Region. A very commercially active city, it is located only 35 km (22 miles) north of the border with Arica y Parinacota Region of Chile, inland from the Pacific Ocean and in the valley of the Caplina River. Initially called San Pedro de Tacna, it has gained a reputation for patriotism, with many monuments and streets named after heroes of Peru’s struggle for independence (1821 to 1824) and the War of the Pacific (1879 to 1883). Plaza Colon, however, is named after Cristóbal Colón – Christopher Columbus. Residents of Tacna are known in Spanish as tacneños. Source: wikipedia: Tacna

C.F. Pollard

Lynn, Massachussets, USA

• PUB. BY C.F. POLLARD LYNN

C.F. Pollard (born 1864) photographer, art dealer, 48 Central Square, Lynn. Pollard advertised prints from negatives as ideal Christmas presents. Californian-born Pollard was still living in Lynn in 1940.

Homer M Pollock

• HM Pollock

Homer M Pollock, (March 1864 to 10 March 1917) artist, known for his work in about 1900 for the White City Art Company of Chicago and his Annie Oakley portraits and postcards. Pollock was also known for his lithographs of Western ladies in the American West during the early 1900’s. Pollock died at Rochester, Olmsted County, Minnesota. My card of his artwork bears to be COPYRIGHT 1905 J. TULLY.

Source: Find a Grave

Giuseppe Polozzi

• Photografia G Polozzi

Giuseppe Polozzi (May 10, 1847 to July 29, 1932), photographer, Viterbo and Perugia. Polozzi won a first class medal in the 1878 Exposition at Viterbo – one of his home towns. He appears to have used his artistic photographic skills in publishing a reproduction of St Thomas Aquinas’ Album in 1880⁷¹. In the Viterbo Journal of 31 August 1878 Polozzi announced the transfer of his photo studio to 11 Via Cavour on the second floor of the photographic establishment of Rempicci & Company.

Source: Fotografie del Risorgimento Italiano Repertori del Museo Centrale del Risorgimento (2016 Gangemi Editore); la citta

Polygraphischen Institut

Zurich, Switzerland

• Polygr. Institut Zurich

Before polygraph referred to lie detectors, it was a duplicating device that produced a copy of a piece of writing simultaneously with the creation of the original, using pens and ink, now more commonly referred to a pantograph. A more likely inspiration for the name is the use of the term for an author who writes on a variety of different subjects.

Polygraphic Institute, Zurich published a Commemorative Paper for the opening of the Swiss National Museum in Zurich on June 25, 1898 by H. Angst and others. Later that year, it published a fundraising anthology for the Zurich Nurses School. The turn-of-the-century illustrated periodical Switzerland was printed in the Institute’s premises.

It seems possible that this was an imprint of the Zurich printers Brunner & Hauser.

Polytechnic Touring Association, London

• POLYTECHNIC NORWAY CRUISES

The Polytechnic Touring Association was a travel agency which emerged from the efforts of the Regent Street Polytechnic (now University of Westminster) to arrange UK and foreign holidays for students and members of that institution.

In 1886 trips for members were arranged to Switzerland and Boulogne. In 1888 a party of boys from the Polytechnic School toured Belgium and Switzerland to see the mountains they were learning about in geography lessons. In 1889 arrangements were made for Polytechnic parties to visit the Paris Exhibition. In subsequent years, the tours were opened up to those who were neither students nor members of the Polytechnic.

Cruises to Norway began in 1892, the year after the organiser of a trip there hired every available horse in the Norwegian town of Odde for a trip to a waterfall, just before the German Emperor arrived with the same idea. Publicity for Polytechnic Norway Cruises in 1893 stressed the high quality of facilities on the ship, such as electricity, value for money, and Poly values such as temperance and a ban on gambling. A cruise to Norway included deck billiards, games and races of various types. In 1895, the founder, Quintin Hogg, funded the purchase of the steam yacht Ceylon for running cruises to Norway to the extent of about £4,000. Accommodation onboard the SY Ceylon included 49 cabins (195 berths), a ladies saloon, dining saloon and a reading room. Trips to Norway were hugely popular and people had to be turned away. However, the cruises account between 1902 and 1911 shows them making a profit in 1902 and 3 and 1905 to 1907 only. Norway barely featured by the late 1930s.

The PTA became an independent company – though still with close links to the Polytechnic – in 1911. Later it changed its name to Poly Travel, before it and Sir Henry Lunn Ltd. were acquired in the 1950s by the British Eagle airline group, and combined into Lunn Poly in 1965, later to be Thomson Holidays.

source: wikipedia Polytechnic Touring Association; The Very Model Of A Modern Travel Agency?The Polytechnic Touring Association 1888-1962 Neil Matthews’ thesis September 2013; The legacy of Quintin Hogg and The Polytechnic, 1864–1992 Educating Mind, Body and Spirit The History of the University of Westminster Part Three

M.L.C. Pool, Alkmaar, Netherlands

• M.L.C. Pool, Boek-en Kunsthandel

M.L.C. Pool, Alkmaar, Netherlands, book printer and bindery established by 1886. In 1895 Pool advertised in the Newspaper for the Book Trade the music of a military march composed in the local military school. In 1915 Pool was on the board of the Alkmaar branch of the Union To Promote Public Education And School Attendance In The Netherlands. In 1919 he was Secretary of the Alkmaar Association Against Alcohol Abuse aSourcend Treasurer of the local branch of the State Pension Association predecessor of ANBO the General Dutch Association for the Elderly formed on 9 September 1900 to campaign for universal retirement pensions for men. In 1931 Pool was listed at residential property at 59 Rijksstraatweg. My topographical card has a photograph in an artistically-embossed margin.

Josef Popper, Vienna

• J P W

Josef Popper (9 July 1862 to 14 November 1942) worked in Vienna as a photographer until the 1930s, but he was best known as a postcard publisher. He published artwork of glamorous women in numbered series and local topographicals into the 1920s.

In 1889/90 Vienna-born Popper graduated from the Graphic Teaching and Research Institute in Vienna and traded postcards from 9 Taborstrasse in Vienna 2 from around 1901. From January 1911 he was a registered travelling photographer as well as publishing and selling postcards until around 1912 at 28 Ferdinandstraße. From 1912 he was back at Taborstraße, at number 17, and then at 26 Glockengasse where Popper and his wife Leopoldine lived until 1938. Josef and Leopoldine Popper were of Jewish origin and suffered Nazi persecution. His business was deregistered on 15 July 1938. Leopoldine died under unexplained circumstances on 21 May 1938 in Vienna. After that, Popper lived in a collective flat in 3 Zirkusgasse in Vienna 2 from where he was deported from Vienna to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 27 August 1942 and murdered three months later.

Not to be confused with: Josef Popper-Lynkeus (21 February 1838 to 22 December 1921) an Austrian scholar, writer, and inventor. I researched Popper in the belief that he was the source of the initials JPW on the card crediting the Croat photographer Mosinger. Although that is possible, it seems less likely given that there is no sign of Popper having been a printer.

Source: Walter Mentzel

Victor Porcher, Paris

• V.P. Paris
• Collections des Galeries Modernes V.P. Paris
• V.P.

Victor Porcher, postcard publisher, 67 rue des Archives in Paris and 18 Avenue Grand Chene in San Marino des Fosses Porcher published the work of many photographers of his time, including Tunisian ethnographicals and Eugène Atget’s series of 80 shots The little trades of Paris in 1903 to 04. Porcher produced a postcard for the use of passengers on the Orient Express.

Sources: Dans le Wagon-Restaurant de la Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-lits et des Grands Express Européens Editeur : V. Porcher à Paris; Les éditeurs de cartes postales du bassin d’Arcachon

Postal Novelty Company

Milwaukie, Wisconsin, USA

• Postal Novelty Co., Milwaukee, Wis

Postal Novelty Company, Milwaukie, Wisconsin published photo-cards of Milwaukee in frames with comic female cartoon figures standing beside them. My cartoon card includes a model of braces (US: suspenders) punning for hold-ups attached with a copyright for Robert Eddy in 1906. Under the heading HERE’S A LEMON the Bookseller and Stationer of Canada for January 1907 recorded that The Postal Novelty Co., 140 Garfield avenue, Milwaukee, announces a card with the new slang phrase “Here’s a Lemon.” This card has a genuine lemon attached to it. This is only one of the large variety of five retail novelty cards made by the firm which made the “Eddy” post card novelties famous. The firm offers special inducements to jobbers and have an exclusive sale proposition, which protects the jobber. The Postal Novelty Co. of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania advertised in the Cincinnati Enquirer of 28 February 1904: Each Card fitted with an article true to life Clever and Original Good Drawings Highly Colored Retail for 5c. & 10c. The company also advertised as being at Kansas City, Missouri and as state agents of Temple Texas.

E Pouteau, Paris

• E.P.

In 1904, E Pouteau of Paris won a diploma in the Grand Concours de Photographie organised by Photo pêle-mêle pour tous, par tous: revue photographique illustrée a journal for amateur photographers. There is no sign of Pouteau having been in business and so the identification of him as having published posed photocards is rather speculative.

Hermann Poy, Dresden, Germany

• Photochromiekarte Hermann Poy Dresden
• Hermann Poy, Dresden.

In 1894 The British Lithographer reported that recently-established printer Hermann Poy was working with two presses. In the 1890s he published photographs of Karlsbad (now Karlovy in the Czech Republic) and Dresden as leporello (concertina) albums. Poy published numbered photocards of Dresden and as far away as what is now the Czech Republic and Turkey from at least 1898 into the divided-back era. He also published cards of Odessa in what is now Ukraine for the Russian market.

Pozzo Brothers, Turin, Italy

• Stab. Fratelli Pozzo – Torino

In 1860 Giacomo Pozzo bought two second-hand printing presses and set up, presumably, with his brother. Pozzos published medical works by Dr. Francesco Abba including Guide for the practice of public and private disinfections (1900) and the Journal of Hygiene and Public Health for at least ten years from 1899. They published a collection of the writings of Nino Bixio (2 October 1821 to 16 December 1873) an Italian general, patriot and politician, one of the most prominent figures in the Italian unification. For Armandi e Bruna they printed a very poor drawing of Queen Elena and new-born Umberto, Prince of Piedmont. Umberto II (15 September 1904 to 18 March 1983) was the last King of Italy. He reigned for 34 days, from 9 May to 12 June 1946, although he had been de facto head of state since 1944, and was nicknamed the May King.

In 1911 the Pozzos printed the official catalogue of the International Philatelic Exhibition in Turin. Fratelli Pozzo published ration coupons and rail timetables into fascist era (1922 to 1943). Pozzo’s factory was bombed on 8 December 1942 forcing him to merge at the start of the next year with Gros Monti & C.

This card: In 1382 the municipality of Bologna decided to give a seat to the Foro dei Mercanti and entrusted the design of the building to the architects Lorenzo da Bagnomarino and Antonio di Vincenzo. The works were completed in 1391 , the year in which the Mercantile Court was established. The Palazzo della Mercanzia overlooks the square of the same name. From the end of the 14th century to the end of the 18th it was the seat of the Universitas mercatorum (Forum of Merchants) and of some Corporations. From 1797 , with the French occupation, it became the seat of the Chamber of Commerce.

The Palazzo houses the original recipes of some typical products of the Bolognese cuisine including the Bolognese sauce recipe, filed on 17 October 1982. Source: wikipedia: Palazzo della Mercanzia

Attilio Pozzoli, Milan, Italy

• A. Pozzoli, Milano.
• Attilio Pozzoli, Milano-Lugano.

Attilio Pozzoli, Milan and Lugano published photo-cards of Italy and Italian-speaking Switzerland of which Lugano is part.

This card: This is a view of Tremesso and Cadenabbia across Lake Como from S. Giovanni di Bellagio. The most common boat on Lake Como was the batel, used for fishing. The three circles on top were covered with an awning to protect the occupants from the weather. An image of a batel with the covers up here.

Emilio Prass, Naples, Italy

• Ediz Artistica P. LETSCHERT Bautzen Germania Libreria Internazionale EMILIO PRASS 59-60 Piazza del Martiri Napoli

Emilio Prass (died 1905) bookseller, 59-60 Piazza del Martiri, Naples. Prass took over the international bookshop of Federigo Furchheim. Prass’s 1897 publication of Furckheim’s Bibliography of Vesuvius bore both names. That year he also published The loves of PB Shelley and his poems about Italy by Vincenzo Fontanaroso. Prass published books of local interest at the turn of the century. His 1898 book Historical Library of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was reprinted in 2011 and 2020. However, in July 1919 Luigi Lubrano recalled how, after Prass died, he had the opportunity to buy his stock of books only to find that all the books in the catalogue published in 1901 remained unsold. Despite this warning, he bought the whole stock and, in turn, found it difficult to sell. He was still bemoaning the indifference of the public to patriotic literature as WWI ended.

Source: Luigi, Aldo & Paulo Lubrano

M A Proctor

Ilkley, Yorkshire, England

• Proctor, Ilkley

M A Proctor, stationer, 6 The Grove, Ilkley.

Josef Prokop, Loket, Czech Republic.

• Josef Prokop, Elbogen

Josef Prokop, bookbinder, Elbogen, now Loket. In 1897, after the houses of Elbogen stopped being numbered in sequence, Prokop was at 24 Main Street.

Loket is a town of in Sokolov District in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 3,100 inhabitants. The town centre itself features Loket Castle, a 12th-century gothic castle. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law. The castle was built on a landmark promontory in a bend of the Ohře River. At one time it was called the Key to the Kingdom of Bohemia. A small town, first mentioned in 1234, arose below the castle. In the early 15th century the royal town was fortified and turned into an important focal point of the Bohemian Crown. In the course of the 19th century, the town became famous for its local porcelain factory. The town was part of the Austrian Empire until 1918.

Source: wikipedia: Loket

A. Prosdocimi

• A. Prosdocimi

Alberto Prosdocimi (also Prosdocini, the signature looks rather like Prosgocimi) (9 September 1852 to 1925) Italian painter and manuscript illuminator. He painted views of Venice in pale and bright watercolors, often sold abroad. He studied painting at the Academia of Venice, but also trained in his father’s studio. He often painted in watercolour but, like his father, he was a respected manuscript illuminator, his work in this regard featuring in cards published by E. Sborgi. He enjoyed prestigious commissions and served as a tutor to royalty and the aristocracy. After working in watercolours for a time, he specialized as a miniaturist.

Source:wikipedia: Alberto Prosdocimi

Purger & Company

Munich, Germany

• Purger & Co., Munchen, Photochromiekarte

Purger & Company was one of the influential publishers of postcards of the golden era of postcards⁸⁴, a printing house based at 13 Mozartstraße, Munich. The founder of the company was most probably Adolf Purger. The company was known for the coloured postcards it produced at the beginning of the 20th century. The postcards were printed in three-colour chromolithography, a system called photochrome, with the indication Photochromiekarte. The company was printing not only postcards for their own account, but also for other companies such as Franz Kugler of Prien, Farrugia of Corfu (qv), Tomas Sanz, Francesco Verderosa of Palermo, J. Ferrary of Gibraltar (qv) and Valentin Hell in Tangiers (qv). Purger & Co. was active at least during the period 1899 to 1920 and produced cards from all around Europe and the Mediterranean basin in photo-chromolithography.

Source: wikipedia: Purger & Co

The Puritan Art Company

Lynn, Massachussets, USA

• The Puritan Art Co., Lynn, Mass (Germany)

The Puritan Art Company, Lynn, published photographs of Lynn in the undivided-back era.