146 - Postcard album with 192 picture postcards, Gruss aus lithographs, Brocken, Harz, Germany, Poland

Postcard album with 192 picture postcards, Gruss aus lithographs, Brocken, Harz, Germany, Poland Paper, card and metal. Postcard album by Gebrüder Heilmann with 192 picture postcards, black grained binding with frame lines, gold-coloured corner ornaments and metal appliqué of a gold-coloured cartouche with crown, a rectangular field with scrolled ends showing a town view with arched bridge, flowering branch and silver-coloured banderole, spine with raised bands, album pages with printed ornamental frames and corner slits for two cards each. Lithographic postcards of the Brocken, picture postcards from Germany and Poland and greetings cards, partly coloured, partly written, including "Gruss aus Hof a. Saale", "Gruss von der Weser" with Carlshafen, "Gruss vom steinernen Schweinchen", "Gruss von der Wilhelmshöhe bei Cassel" with Löwenburg, Thale "Eingang in das Bodethal", Burgkemnitz, "Gruss aus Aken a.d. Elbe", "vom Truppenübungsplatz Loburg", "Gruss aus Herzberg a. Harz", "Gruss aus dem Italienischen Garten Leipzig" and "Gruss aus Bingen", dated by hand among others 25.6.99 and 16.12.1900. Condition commensurate with age, album binding rubbed, endpaper and title leaf loose. The picture postcard had its breakthrough in Germany around 1896; the years from 1897 to 1918 are regarded as the golden age of the picture postcard, with mass mailing and a great variety of motifs. Typical of the topographical lithographs of this period is the lettering "Gruss aus …" on the picture side, often as a multi-view card on which several individual views of a place are grouped around a main view. Between 1895 and 1905 chromolithography made brightly printed cards possible, with several layers of colour printed on top of each other. Until the introduction of the divided address side on 1 February 1905 the reverse was reserved for the address, stamp and postmark, so messages were written on the picture side. The collecting and study of picture postcards and postcards is called deltiology.