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 ?
T - PUBLISHERS
Taber Prang Art Co. 1892-1907
Springfield, MA
A fine lithographic printing house formed by the merger of Louis Prang & Co. with the Taber Company in 1892. They started by printing view-cards of Boston and then holiday cards in 1898.
H.H. Tammen Curio Co. 1896-1953
1516 Arapahoe Street, Denver, CO
A novelty dealer and important publisher of national view-cards and Western themes in continuous tone and halftone lithography. Their logo does not appear on all their cards but other graphic elements are often remain the same.
K.S. Tanner, Jr. (1945-1957)
Rutherfordtown, NC
An importer and distributor of postcards for the Atelier Graphique H. Vontobel in Switzerland. These view-cards depict scenes on a national scope mostly contracted for resorts and tourist attractions. A notable set was made of the colonial architecture in Williamsburg, Virginia. These cards may bare either the name of Runta, Vontobel, or K.S. Tanner, Jr. who was most likely the owner of the Runta Import Co. All cards were printed in the Swiss photochrom process and have white borders with an irregular edge. The Tanner cards are labeled with a very cursive font.
Tanner Souvenir (1905-1910)
50 & 52 Howard, New York, NY
Published monochrome view-cards and many different types of novelty cards.
Alfred John Tattersall 1886-1951
American Samoa
Tattersall was a photographer who left New Zealand for Samoa in 1886. After his arrival he became an assistant to fellow New Zealand photographer John Davis who had come to Samoa thirteen years earlier. Tattersall captured many images of views and types and when Davis died he continued printing his negatives. About 1905 these photographic images began being published as postcards. They were printed in a variety of manner in both Samoa and in Germany.
Taylor Art Co. (1907-1909)
Philadelphia, PA
A publisher of halftone lithographic holiday, comic, and local view-cards. It is unknown if they had any relationship to the Helman-Taylor Art Co. of New York, who produced many illustrated prints for schools and libraries.
G. Morris Taylor (1925-1960’s)
Jasper, AB Canada
A photographer of western Canadian scenes, most notably of the Rocky Mountains. Many of his images were turned into real photo postcards that were manufactured in Canada. In later years his photographs were use to make photochromes under the trade name Taylorchrome.
Taylor Pratt & Co. (1907-1908)
1161 Broadway, New York, NY
Published a wide variety of postcard types from views and artist signed cards to novelties.
Temme Co. (1908-1913)
Orange, NJ
Published black & white and color lithographic view-cards depicting scenes from New York and New Jersey. They were made in Germany.
B.G. Teubner 1811-
Stuttgart, Germany
An important publisher of books that became well known for their Bibliotheca Teubneriana, a set of low priced but quality reprints of ancient and Medieval literature. They began publishing postcards at the turn of the 20th century concentrating on artist signed silhouettes printed in fine continuous tone lithography.
Thacker, Spink & Co. (1853-1960)
Calcutta, India
A major Indian book publisher of literature, guides, history, and almanacs. They were also an early publisher of picture postcards. They had an office for distribution in London, England.
Frank S. Thayer Publishing Co. (1905-1918)
Denver, CO
A publisher of Western view-cards and themes along with cowboy song sets in halftone lithography.
G. L. Thompson (1906-1909)
New York, NY
Published lithographic black & white postcards in an open halftone depicting the coastal fortifications and heavy guns protecting New York’s waterways.
Thompson’s Studio (1901-1912)
Marblehead, MA
Photographer Franklin E.S. Thompson published many early local scenes as color and monochromatic continuous toned lithographic postcards. They were made in Germany.
Thompson & Thompson (1908-1926)
Boston, MA
Published view-cards of New England scenes. Most of their halftone lithographic and hand colored cards were printed through Valentine & Sons. They also published many continuous tone color cards that were printed in France with very distinctive hand drawn skies.
Thwaites 1905-1932
Ketchikan, AK
John E. (Jack) Thwaites was a photographer who came to Alaska in 1905. He spent many years traveling the Territory until settling down in Ketchikan in 1919. He opened a photo shop there in 1925 from which he sold many of his images as real photo postcards. In 1930 he began working with Otto Schallerer on a series of scenic photo books. When Thwaites retired in 1932 he sold his business to Schallerer who ran it until its sale in 1965.
Tichenor & Rudolph (1910-1968)
Middletown, NY
A publisher of view-cards depicting scenes from New York. These gravure cards were made in Germany.
Tichnor Brothers, Inc. (1912-1987)
160 N. Washington Street, Boston and Cambridge, MA
A major publisher and printer of a wide variety of postcards types. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. They also produced a black white open halftone series on the hurricane of 1938.
Their photochomes went under the trade name Lusterchrome. They also produced an early Tichnor Gloss series that was so heavily retouched they floated somewhere between being artist drawn and being a photograph. The company was sold in 1987 to Paper Majic.
Tomlin Art Co. (1943-1960’s)
Northport, NY
A publisher of continuous tone and halftone lithographic view-cards of Queens County and Long Island, New York. These cards were printed in black & white and monotone with hand coloring added to only selective parts of the image in a free manner. They later went on to produce photochromes.
Topps Chewing Gum, Inc. 1938-
254 36th Street, Brooklyn, New York
This manufacturer of Topps Gum was founded by the four Shorin brothers as a way to revitalize the failing business, American Leaf Tobacco, established by their father in 1890. In 1947 they introduced Bazooka Bubble Gum and in 1950 they began adding it to packs of trading cards to help encourage sales. Two years later they introduced the baseball card as we know it today. These cards quickly gained in popularity to the point they were being purchased for themselves rather than for the gum. While baseball cards grew to dominate the trading cards industry a variety of non sports related cards were produced as well. Despite their smaller size some of these cards were issued as miniature postcards that could be mailed. These cards were printed in the United States and were sold over the counter and through venting machines. Their business name was changed to The Topps Co., Inc. in 1987 and in 1994 they moved their headquarters to Whitehall street in Manhattan.
J. Tosovic (1918-1935)
Raguse, Italy
A photographer that published picture books and regional view-cards in continuous tone lithography.
Tower Mfg. & Novelty Co. (1906-1915)
New York, NY
A publisher of black & white view-cards in gravure in addition to various other printed materials. They produced an unusual postcard set on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Their cards were printed in Germany.
Charles A. Townsend (1914-1931)
Belfast, Maine
A photographer of the mid-Maine coast who published many of his images as real photo postcards. He is well known for his work depicting Acadia National Park. Many of his scenes were published by the Jordan Pond House.
Toyo Kisen Kaisha (Oriental Steamship Co.) 1896-1926
Yokohama, Japan
This steamship company connected a number of ports in Japan with service to San Francisco, Honolulu, and Hong Kong. At the turn of the 20th century they began publishing postcards for their customers. These cards often depicted scenes based on Japanese romantic themes rather than the typical ships of the line or ports of call. Their service was interrupted between 1904 and 1905 when their fleet was put into military use during the Russo-Japanese War. Despite opening new routes to South America in 1906 they faced ever growing competition and were taken over by Nippon Yuson Kaisha in 1926.
Alberto Traldi (1902-1918)
Milan, Italy
A publisher of a variety of postcard types in gravure and lithography. Though they concentrated on view-cards of Europe and the Middle East they also produced a series on dogs and the wild relief sculpture of D. Mastroianni.
Trautmann & von Seggern (1918)
Hamburg, Germany
A publisher of black & white and color postcards in halftone lithography. They seem to have had an affinity with Orientalism, reproducing paintings in this genre and publishing artist signed cards of the Arabian Tales. Some of their cards were issued in larger than standard sizes.
Dr. Trenkler Co. (1904-1914)
Leipzig, Saxony
Published greeting and view-cards of Europe and the Middle-East in both color and black & white halftone lithography and monotone collotypes. A set of black & white cards depicting the German front lines were produced durring the First World War. They are also known for a set of cards issued for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in 1904.
Trinks & Co. (1910-1950)
Leipzig, Germany
A publisher of continuous toned lithographic view-cards as well as real photo postcards.
A. Trub & Cie 1859-
Aarau, Switzerland
This company was founded as a printer of bonds and securities, a product they continued to produce until 2005. By 1890 they expanded into tourism by printing pictorial travel booklets and brochures and also fine continuous tone color view-cards. Today Trub is primarily in the business of producing electronic identity cards.
Raphael Tuck & Sons 1866-1960’s
London, England and 122 Fifth Ave, New York, NY
This Company was founded in 1866 by Raphael Tuck, a seller of furniture, pictures, and frames. In 1871, after concentrating on the picture side of the business, Tuck’s three sons joined the firm and they began printing their first Christmas cards. When Raphael retired in 1881, his son Adolph took over the family business. By 1894, a year after they were appointed official printers to Queen Victoria, they printed their first Souvenir Card. When postal regulations were finally changed after much lobbying by Tuck and others, it provided better opportunities to enter the postcard market. Tuck immediately began the printing of postcards in chromolithography, and their twelve card set of London became the first illustrated card set in England. By 1899 they became the first publisher to print postcards in a larger size, what we now call standard. They went on to publish a very wide variety of card types and printed matter, including many innovative designs, eventually becoming a major publishing house. Not one to miss an opportunity, Tuck also became a major supplier of postcard accessories such as albums and display frames for cards. As they started producing view-cards on a worldwide basis they opened offices in New York and Paris in 1900 to facilitate orders and distribution. Their cards were mostly printed in England, Saxony, and Holland while their designs usually came from artists local to the scenes working through their international branches. Their London factory and offices were destroyed in 1940 during a German bombing raid, but they began publishing anew after the war until purchased by Purnell & Sons in the 1960’s.
Many problems exist with their numbering system, which began in 1898, as it is not sequentially ordered. In addition all cards within a series carry the same number, and while cards were supposedly issued in series of six some sets have additional cards. The same cards printed for American and British markets often carried different numbers.
Chromolithographic views, often artist signed, were issued as private mailing cards. The first numbered series started in 1898. Three U.S. sets were made in black & white with a heraldic design.
Washington, DC 3000-3009
Boston, MA 5010-5019
Philadelphia, PA 5020-5029
In 1902 five additional U.S. sets were issued as private mailing cards in color with the artists names printed on them.
New York, NY 5051-5070
Atlantic City, NJ 5071-5080
The Hudson River, NY 5081-5090
Chicago, IL 6000-6011
St. Louis, MO 6012-6023
Tuck produced a number of early card sets in chromolithography. Their largest were made in 1902 and 1903 issued as the United Kingdom Series containing 53 sets of cards, and the Heraldic Series illustrating major cities and towns of Great Britain printed in monotones with color crests and decorative graphics. These cards were printed in Bavaria.
A Continental Series of art cards were printed in Germany as Chromolithographs.
The cards of their lithochrome series (sometimes called photochromes, but not to be confused with chromes), were not individually numbered but sold in packets of six in which all cards carried the same series number. This was their largest series covering numerous countries and topics. Many of these sets were marketed to specific geographical locations. They were printed in Germany and Saxony.
Tuck’s Carbonett’s were printed in sepia with a fine continuous tone that closely resembled a photograph. They were sparsely hand colored. These cards were printed in Great Britain.
The Oilette series in halftone lithography depicted painted views and also came in sets. These were Tuck’s most popular cards. They produced many scenes from all over the many colonies of the British Empire in the Wide Wide World series, a name taken from a popular book set. These cards were printed in England.
Only a few U.S. views were created as Oilettes and they are mostly of New York City consisting of three large series. The Greater New York (series 1038) and New York (series 2430) cards mostly depicted everyday street life while the Cosmopolitan New York series concentrated on immigrant neighborhoods (the Ghetto 1013, Little Italy 1014, Chinatown 1068). These undivided cards often came with large writing tabs.
An additional series of cards labeled Oilette were latter made but they are distinctly different from the earlier cards. These were also printed in halftone lithography but as bleeds with a textured surface to simulate brush stokes (oilfacsim). Their subjects are more to completely generic and the painting style is more amateurish.
A less commonly seen Oilette type were printed in a open halftone with a very wide white margin. These cards were printed on very heavy paper stock to hold a false plate mark. It is a strange combination for the poor printing quality does not match the fine art status implied by the plate mark.
Many types of greeting cards of English manufacture were produced in a variety of techniques and issued in numbered series.
Small sets of cards were printed in untypical techniques. Tuck’s office in Paris published a series of artist singed cards that were printed in France.
Tuck’s Paris office also published a series of hand colored real photo cards of women that were similar to many other such photo cards manufactured in France.
Tuck produced a great number of novelty cards, some under the Oilette name. Perhaps their largest novelty set was that of paper dolls, which they had printed apart from postcards since 1893. Similar cards of other types of cutout toys were also made.
The Raphotype lithographic view-cards were printed in Holland and are consecutively numbered 5000-6100. These cards were produced for the American market.
C.O. Tucker (1906-1917)
Boston, MA
Published view-cards of Massachusetts and scenes of the U.S. Life Saving Service in black & white and sepia halftone lithography on cream colored paper. In later years they published less distinct cards with other printers.
R.F. Turnbull (1895-1905)
New York, NY
A photographer who provided many images of the New York Metropolitan area for use by postcard publishers. Turnbull’s name usually appears on these cards.
