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 ?
F - PUBLISHERS
John T. Faber (1907-1910)
Milwaukee, WI
A noted publisher of Milwaukee view-cards in halftone lithography. These German made cards were printed with a crisp RGB pallet.
Farben Photographische Gesellschaft m.b.H.
See Color Photographic Society, Ltd.
S.C. Fagard (1902-1908)
Niagara Falls, NY
A publisher of black & white, monotone, and halftone lithographic color view-cards. While he published a variety of local views most of his imagery was focused on Niagara Falls. In addition to postcards Fagard also printed sheet music and sold souvenirs.
Family Dog Productions 1966-1970
Gough Street, San Francisco, CA
Founded by Chester Leo (Chet) Helms at the hippie commune known as the Family Dog House to promote concerts at the Fillmore auditorium and later the Avalon Ballroom. During 1966 and 1967 he employed many different illustrators, including Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, and Stanley Mouse to create posters, handbills and oversized postcards to promote concerts. Much of this work is considered the height of the psychedelic style. The Family Dog name was occasionally associated with concerts up to the mid-1990’s.
The Fatherland 1914-1917
1123 Broadway, New York, NY
A weekly magazine founded to express the German position on the war in Europe in a sea of pro-British journalism. In 1915 they published a set of four lithographic postcards printed in red, blue, and black, illustrated by A. Staehle. They were designed to to expose “the inhuman traffic in arms and ammunition carried out by the United States” and expose the hypocrisy of America’s proclaimed neutrality. The production of these cards are a good example of the esteem held by printed matter at this time in its ability to influence public opinion. The publishers name is not shown on these cards and few knew at the time that the magazine received funding directly from the German Government. Just before the United States declared war on Germany the magazine changed its name to The American Weekly.
C.W. Faulkner & Co., Ltd. 1885-
79 Golden Lane, London. England
An important publisher of games, pictorial souvenirs, children’s books, and postcards. Faulkner was originally in the Christmas card business along with Albert Hilder Scheimer. Though they worked as lithographers they also began printing in gravure in 1882. In 1885 their partnership ended with Faulkner taking over the business. He changed the company name in the 1890’s, and became a Limited company in 1905. While they printed a wide variety of card types, they are best known for their early black & white view-cards paired with a coat of arms, real photo cards of actresses, artist signed cards by Louis Wain, and propaganda cards issued during World War One. Many of their cards were printed in Germany and Austria.
Feathered World (1898-)
9 Arundel Street, London, England
A monthly magazine with international distribution concerning fancy pigeons and exhibition poultry. The firm also published the magazine Canary & Cage Bird Life. They issued many free trade cards from which images were taken to produce postcards.
Federal Engraving and Publishing Co. (1905-1906)
Boston, MA
Printed and published view-cards of eastern Massachusetts. Their early cards were made as black & white multi-views while later cards were printed in gravure with a very bright pallet.
Ferenz-Martini (1919-1920’s)
135 MacDougal Street, New York, NY
Reproduced the New York etchings of Bernhard Wall on postcards in halftone lithography. There are many scenes of Greenwich Village within the series.
L. Ferid (1916-1920’s)
Beirut, Syria (Lebanon)
A photographer operating in the French Mandate of Syria formed after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In addition to souvenir booklets Ferid published and black & white and brightly colored postcards in continuous toned lithography.
Gotthard Ferrari, Jr. (1848-1932)
Bolzano, (Trento) Italy
A book publisher who began producing view-cards of local scenes. Most of these continuous toned lithographic postcards seemed to have been printed in a limited number of years following World War One.
A. Figl & Co. (1906-1912)
Bolzano, (Trento) Italy
A publisher of many local view-cards. They were produced in continuous tone color lithography as well as in black & white and monotones.
Fine Art Studio (1930’s)
London, England
A publisher of gravure postcards that take on the appearance of original etchings. These cards were so carefully reproduced they can easily be mistaken for hand colored etchings even though the original work these cards were based on were most likely drawings. They come complete with a dirty plate mark and rough paper edges imitating a fine art etching. They are usually hand titled in pencil below the image.
Paul Fink (1899-1905)
Chemnitz, Saxony
A fine art printer that produced many elaborate view cards, including Gruss aus. While many of Finks postcards were made either in chromolithography or as collotypes, he also often incorporated embossing and combined different printing techniques on singe cards.
Paul Finkenrath (PFB) 1901-1910
Berlin, Germany
Founded as Finkelrath & Graswick in 1897 but this partnership only lasted two years though Graswick continued printing postcards until 1922. In 1901 Finkenrath took on two new partners, Sigmund Oettinger and Paul Schimpf, and began publishing comic and illustrated cards for the American market. Many of these cards incorporated embossing and bronzing which he termed Radiol. In 1910 this partnership broke up with Schimpf taking over the printing operations. Finkenrath turned his interests to designing washing machines.
Otto Fischer 1905-1910
Haifa, Palestine
A publisher of black & white and hand colored postcards.
Fischgrund Publishing Co. (1930’s-1960’s)
Mexico City, Mexico
Eugenio Fischgrund’s company was a leading publisher of books, maps, prints, Christmas cards, and postcards. They are best known for their many art cards depicting the works of the Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera and the works of the painters Miguel Gomez Medina and Raphael Martinez. They also published view-cards, cartoons, and a unusual series of Mexican folk art designs printed on tree bark. These cards were distributed throughout Mexico.
Louis Marquez was a well known photographer of Mexican types who hand tinted many of his own photographs. In the mid 1930’s Fischgrund turned 96 of these images into art postcards as part of the Arco Iris series. This continuous tone printing method created soft dry looking images somewhere in between the appearanece of a autochrome and an early photochrome.
Fischgrund was one of the first Mexican publishers to start producing photochromes. In 1950 Fischgrund began producing continental size cards that were printed in France with the Mexichrome logo on them. But by 1954 Helio-Mexico began printing their cards back in Mexico and they soon reverted back to standard size.
In the late 1950’s they started producing their cards from print film rather than transparencies. These cards were printed by Litho Offset Sanchez in New York and carried the Marcolor logo.
$5 Photo Co. (1933-1968)
Photo Park, Canton, NY
A photo studio founded by photographer Dwight Church. While he produced many standard real photo postcards of western Massachusetts and the Adirondack region, he is best known for the views produced from his aerial photo business. It had been thought that he gave up this portion of his work after he crashed his plane, but apparently he continued to take aerial shots throughout his career if at a slower rate. For publicity he traveled around in a car designed to look like a roll of film. He is known to have other quirks such as his affinity with abbreviation, examples which appear on everything from his card titles to the name of his Photo Park Studio from which they were sold. Dwight died in 1974 and his unique studio was demolished in 2003.
Fletcher & Co. (1913-1926)
Orleans, VT
A photo studio that published real photo postcards depicting scenes in the region around Vermont. Fletcher’s name appears on the backs of these cards. Some of his photographs were also printed as white border cards by the Valentine-Souvenir Company.
FlyCards 2000-
Moscow, Russia
A publisher and major distributor of rack cards. Their cards are well designed for promotion usually incorporating images of women. The text on these cards can be found in both English and Russian. The words Not For Sale are placed within their stamp boxes and all cards are numbered.
Ford Motor Co. 1903-
Dearborn, MI
This company’s innovative production line methods gave it an edge over much competition and it quickly became America’s leading automobile manufacturer. Large efforts were made by Ford to promote their products outside of the normal range of advertising. They published a magazine, Ford Times, between 1908 and 1993, which was accompanied by the publication of many postcards. A noted artist signed card set is the Ford Booster Comic that illustrated Ford vehicles outperforming their competition in a number of humorous situations.
Fortier Photo 1900-1920
Dakar, Senegal
Edmond Fortier was a photographer of African types, views, and military subjects, who turned many of his images into lithographic black & white postcards. While most of his images are of Darkar he traveled throughout French West Africa including the Ivory Coast, French Guinea, Mali, and Mauritania. Between 1900 and 1910 he produced 3300 postcards. Between 1912 and 1920 these same images were published as reprints. After Fortier died in 1928 all of his negatives disappeared. Pablo Picasso is known to have owned a large collection of his postcards. It is though they they may have been one of the influences that led to his development of Cubism.
L.A. Foster Photo Co. (1908)
Kewanee, IL
Produced real photo postcards of scenes from the northern Great Plains. Some cards suffer from crude retouching work.
Foster & Reynolds (1901-1909)
Washington, DC
Publisher of color and black & white view-cards of the Washington area. Their views were later published under the name B.S. Reynolds.
Fotocelere (1910-1942)
Turin, Italy
Produced artist signed printed postcards in their early years but they are primarily known for publishing real photo cards, some with hand coloring. They may have had offices in additional cities. Their cards were manufactured in Italy.
F. Frankel & Co. (1904-1916)
London, England
A publisher of comic and view-cards depicting scenes throughout Great Britain. Some of these German made postcards were issued under the Star Series name.
Frankfurt Institute of Photolithography (1990’s-1903)
Frankfurt, Germany
Printed fine color and black & white view-cards among other items in an advanced form of collotype sometimes referred to as lichtdruckanstalt.
Franklin Post Card Co. (1908-1915)
Chicago, IL
A major publisher of halftone lithographic postcards depicting Chicago. They were printed in Germany.
L. Franzl & Co. (1901-1907)
Munich, Bavaria
A publisher of boldly colored chromolithographic artist signed view-cards. They also produced postcards for the Barnum & Bailey Circus tours of Europe.
Frasher’s, Inc. (Frasher’s Foto Co.) 1920-1955
Pomona, CA
Published real photo postcards of Western views and Native Americans by the photographer Burton Frasher, Sr. After years of traveling while working in the fruit packing industry, he and his wife Josephine opened a photo shop in La Verne, California in 1914. Six years later he moved to Pomona where he expanded his studio by selling stationary, gifts, and postcards. Frasher went to great lengths to find images for his real photo postcards. He traveled down into Death Valley and up to Mt. Whitney, and the remote regions of Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico when they were all still largely unassessable by roads. By the 1930’s he began reproducing his images as printed linens manufactured by Curt Teich allowing national distribution. In 1949 a notable set of 25 printed cards of the Gold Country were issued for the California Centennial. Afterwards he discontinued printing cards in order to concentrate on the production of his real photo postcards, though about 160 views were later published as photochromes printed by H.S. Crocker and the Koppel Company. His son Burton Frasher, Jr. continued to sell his father’s postcards after his death in 1955.
John Fredriksons (1905-1908)
Christiana, Norway
A publisher of lithographic postcards depicting views and types. Many of his cards were artist signed from notables such as Jenny Nystrom.
Harry Whittier Frees 1902-1953
Oaks, PA
An animal photographer who created images for calendars, books, and postcards. Frees began to pose dressed animals in 1905, and because of their popularity they became his signature work. He became a staff animal photographer for the Rotograph Company and he supplied photos for many other postcard publishers. His work was very popular in both the United States and in Europe.
S. Freund & Co. (1901-1917)
Breslau, Germany
A publisher of postcards from earl;y chromolithographic Gruss aus views to Field-post cards in halftone lithography. Some of their early cards are oversized.
E. Frey & Co. (1903-1906)
New York, NY
A publisher of lithographic view-cards depicting scenes from New York to Puerto Rico.
Francis Frith & Co. 1890-1970
Wolton-Underedge, England
Francis Frith had been producing photographs since 1850 depicting scenes from Great Britain to the Middle-East. While these early images were originally published in book form, the company began to print postcards when his sons took over the business after Francis’ death in 1898. As the company went on to hire additional photographers adding to to Frith’s 40,000 negatives already in stock, it grew into the world’s largest photo studio. Photos from 1896 to 1940 are numbered 18521 to 81559. Later images have a letter prefix that corresponds to a specific location. A few artist signed cards and comics were published in addition to the vast amount of view-cards printed from their photos. Their cards are often difficult to date as many of the images from the 19th century continued to be printed until the company closed in 1970. Frith issued about 75,000 different titles.
Fritz Studio (1905-1910)
852 Penn Street, Reading, PA
A photo studio that produced cabinet cards and a great number of portraits as real photo postcards.
Max Fruchtermann 1895-1966
Constantinople, Turkey
A photographer who was the first to create postcards depicting the Ottoman Empire. Orientalism was still in vogue when Fruchtermann began creating cards and his depictions became very popular. His early postcards are hand colored but he began to produce color cards in 1897 that were printed by Emil Pinkau. In addition to his view-cards he produced a large series of figure studies and types in native costume. The disruption of the First World War caused his bankruptcy and he died in 1918. His son Paul continued to run his postcard shop until 1966 when the entire remaining inventory was sold off.
J.S. Fry & Sons 1822-1919
Union Street, Bristol, England
Joseph Fry, owner of a apothecary shop began making chocolate after purchasing a recipe for it in 1759. The business went under a number of different names until his son Joseph Storrs took over and named it J.S. Fry & Sons in 1822. They are attributed to have manufactured the first commercial chocolate bars and Easter eggs. They produced all sorts of material for advertising purposes including lithographic postcards when they became popular. Some cards displayed images of their factory including interiors views but most cards were of the artist signed variety drawn by notable illustrators of the day such as Tom Brown, John Hassell, and Charles Pears. Some of these images were later reproduced by other publishers such as Raphael Tuck. In 1919 they merged with Cadbury’s to become the British Cocoa & Chocolate Company.
Fukuda Card Co. (1950’s-1960’s)
Yokohama, Japan
A publisher of books and postcards. Their cards, produced in offset lithography and as Fuku Color photochromes were made in Japan . They did work for the Japanese Travel Bureau and their cards were designed for a duel audience with titles printed in both English and Japanese.
R.O. Fusslein (1905-1910)
Johannesburg, South Africa
A publisher of lithographic and real photo postcards depicting views of South Africa and Transvaal. He also produced many postcards of types and of the mining industry.
Orell Fussli & Co. 1519-
Zurich, Switzerland
An old and important printer, publisher and book seller. They are one of the first companies to ever print securities and stamps. Fussli invented the ten color photochrom process in 1880, which was used by their subsidiary Photoglob to print pictorial materials including postcards. This unique process was selectively licensed out to other printers. They became Orell Fussli Holding AG in 1999.
