A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Wavy
A type of damage on a postcard where it can no longer lie flat. A wavy surface is caused by water damage. Because of paper’s organic properties, it absorbs water and expands when wet. If left to dry without tension applied, the paper’s fibers will loose moisture at different rates and shrink unevenly leaving a wavy surface behind.

Web
Paper manufactured for use as a roll, for the printing of large volume items. Webs were invented in England by Thomas Crompton in 1820. A printing press that utilizes paper from rolls is sometimes referred to as a web press.

Web-fed
The method by which cylinder or rotary press is fed paper in a continuous manner from a large roll. Presses fed by webs can often print on both sides of a paper roll simultaneously at high speeds. They cannot produce the quality printing of sheet-fed presses but are very economical for high volume newspaper printing or other work that requires large press runs.

Wet Spots (Spotting)
A type of damage suffered by hand colored postcards when exposed to water. Watercolor was the predominant method of hand coloring postcards because of its ease of use, low price, and drying time, but this type of coloring always remains water-soluble. This unfortunately was a very poor choice for an object that was so greatly handled and often exposed to outdoor elements. If a drop of water reaches the surface of such a card, the colorant would dissolve and move toward the droplet’s edge. After it dried a light spot bleached of color with a dark ring around it is left behind.

White Border Card
A postcard with a white border issued by specific publishers approximately between 1913 and 1939. In 1913 when obtaining cards from Germany began to become difficult, then impossible, American companies tried to take up the slack. Because cards with borders did not have to be carefully trimmed as required by those cards with bleeds, our less skilled workforce could be more easily employed to make them. They were also cheaper to produce because they used less ink and paper, a consideration in years of growing scarcity. High numbers of these cards were produced from WWI through the 1920’s. The depression of the 1930’s kept this cost saving trend in use. Because white borders were used by a number of major printers in a field of diminishing competition their numbers became so noticeable that the postcards made during these years are referred to as white border cards, denoting a period as well as physical appearance. Many other printers of the same period continued to print their cards as bleeds. The definition remains allusive, as not all cards with white borders are considered white border cards. Some cards have been printed with white borders since the inception of postcards.

Wiener Werkstätte-Stil
An artists cooperative founded by Joseph Hoffmann and Kolman Moser in Vienna in 1903. It was heavily influenced by the English Arts & Crafts Movement and had close ties to the Vienna Sezession of the Art Nouveau Movement. Their philosophy geared them toward the production of art for the masses, while in actuality most of their products were high priced and found their way into the hands of the wealthy. They are best known for their innovative, pre-cubist, style that utilized beautiful hard geometries. Because of the many artists who worked here their products were not consistant but only related in style. This style was used on a wide range of objects, and had much influence on Art Deco and the Bauhaus in the 1920’s and 30’s, and in later years on Scandinavian and Italian design. But as their work grew more organic over the years its popularity lessened in the face of newer geometric styles. Before it closed in 1932, the cooperative produced a vast array of finely crafted objects including postcards by many of their artists.

Will Call Cards
A type of business postcard mailed from a company to potential clients stating that a salesman will soon be calling on them. Originally these cards just contained text but they were eventually illustrated. Will call cards were mostly used in the pioneer era.

Woodburytype
An early method of reproducing photographs patented by Walter Bentley Woodbury in 1864. It was an attempt to solve the problem of fading by creating a printed image almost identical to that of a photograph. The process begins with carbon tissue photosensitized with a dichromate and exposed to a negative. The areas exposed to light harden, and when the remaining gelatin is washed out, a relief is left behind. This is then pushed into a sheet of soft lead with a hydraulic press under great pressure. The result is an intaglio printing plate. Instead of inking the plate a solution of warm pigmented gelatin is poured into it and paper is then applied. As it cools the image is transferred onto the paper, which is always trimmed to rid itself of excess gelatin. The delicate plate could yield about 100 prints. It was a very expensive reproductive method and woodburytypes were only used in high quality books as paste-ins. Its use ended around 1900 as other methods more adaptable to commercial printing were developed. This process however was combined with lithographic techniques that were more commercially successful, such as photochromie, though it still remained expensive to use.

Wood Engraving
A relief printing method in which the polished end grains of hardwoods are engraved to create an image. Specially crafted burins are used to gouge wood out of its block in a manner more reminiscent of metal engraving than of woodcut. Only here it is the surface areas that will print while the incised lines remain white. Because of the hardness of the block, and its lack of directional grain, wood engraving could reproduce pictures with very fine details, but only in solid tones. All gradations were created optically, usually by engraving a series of parallel lines. Because these wood blocks could be surfaced rolled and were durable, it allowed them to be used in the letterpress process. When used together it is known as xylogrophy

Write-away Card
A postcard in which the beginning of a written message is pre-printed on the cardís writing tab. These types of cards largely disappeared with their tabs after the introduction of the divided back postcard.

Writing Tab
Prior to March of 1907 no writing except for the address was allowed on the back of postcards. Placing correspondence on the front of a postal did not become a problem until the picture postcard was introduced. At first the illustrations on these cards were small leaving plenty of room for a message, but small images also required much design work. Larger images made directly from contact prints were much simpler to make thus faster and cheaper to produce. Larger images also seemed to have much more public appeal and together this caused the surface of postcards to quickly fill up. Now only small tabs were left on cards so at least a minimum of correspondence could be added. Often they were not large enough and a message spilled over into the image. Tabs usually appeared at the bottom of a card but they could also be placed on the side, in a corner, or a multiple of places depending on what best suited the composition. After the divided postcard came into use and writing could now be place on a card’s back, writing tabs became obsolete. Some publishers continued to use tabs for a few more years though pointless from a practical standpoint.