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

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.

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.

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 Finkenrath (PFB)   (1907-1910)
Berlin, Germany

Published comic and illustrated cards for the American market. Many of their cards incorporated embossing or bronzing, a technique he termed Radiol.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Frasher’s, Inc. (Frasher’s Foto Co.)   1921-1955
Pomona, CA

Published real photo postcards of Western views and Native Americans by the photographer Burton Frasher, Sr. Frasher also had many of his images printed as linen cards by Curt Teich but he eventually discontinued this practice to concentrated on real photo postcards. By the 1930’s these cards were being distributed nationally.

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.

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.

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.

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.