Great Britain: Various Early Picture Postcard Claims. (as of 02/12/09)
St Sunniva, Hook, Armitage, Glasgow etc. Also 1871 Austria
The St Sunniva card
was a full "continental" size card, with an artist drawn picture of
the steam yacht "St Sunniva" . It was posted from
Aberdeen on 16th July 1892 to Maine, USA The full letter postage
was paid to the USA , i.e two and one half pence=1d+1.5d stamps . (Full description
given in April 1997 PPM ). Julian Dunn found a card from the same
series for
the ship St Rognvald , postmarked in Trondheim in June 1892.
The company running these ships (The North of Scotland, Orkney and Shetland, Steam Navigation Co Ltd , for more info type "North of Scotland Orkney and Shetland " into Google ) had a cruise trade to Norway. It is clear that these cards were for use in Norway, which permitted full size picture cards at that time. It just happened that this American tourist had a spare cruise card which she posted when she got to Aberdeen , paying the full letter rate to the USA.
Odds and Ends St Sunniva herself was the patron saint of Western Norway. The only other illustration I know of the S.Y St Sunniva is an artist drawing on the address side of a Norwegian hotel card, printed by Valentines. Given that these two ships were named after Norse saints it seems possible that this shipping company was controlled from Norway
Conclusion: If you paid the full UK letter rate you could post whatever you liked in 1892, certainly including Continental "Gruss Aus" size cards. This full size card was clearly designed for use in Norway on the Shetland to Bergen cruise route
Theodore Hook card. P/U 14th July 1840
Artist drawn card (a large 200*130 mm, nearly 8*5 inches) date stamped 14th July 1840, addressed to Theodore Hook
The card is supposed to be a joke, but like all bad jokes is difficult to follow. The household Gods "Penates" (Post Office Officials??) are supposed to be writing Penny letters? At least with the 1840 Mulready envelope caricatures you can see the point, but here....?
The usual credit for invention of the postcard is given variously to Dr H von Stephan in Germany , Lipman in the USA or Dr E Hermann in Austria. all in the 1860's. I feel these claims still very much stand as they were promoting the idea of cards as a new commercial form of communication for the general public and not as a "one-off" artist drawn jeu d'esprit as seen here .
In the UK, Dennis made a sustained effort to follow up the legislation of 1894 allowing adhesive stamps to be used on his published and printed picture post cards. These cards were available and sold to the general public This was in complete contrast to this Hook "one off" which clearly was not offered for general sale to the public
Artist drawn "one offs" have always been with us, but they lack the essential idea of promoting a new form of communication for everyman.
1890 Armitage Xmas Card
This is a picture card and the postage paid is one half penny. It is lithographically printed on an official card of the time. This was perfectly legal and was normally done by commercial firms for advertising purposes.
In the 1881 UK Census, (9 years prior to the date of this card) the father George Armitage was living in Kensington and his son also called George was living at Kirklees Hall near Brighouse. Possibly this card was sent from the Kensington mother and father to their son in Yorkshire. However the crest used does not appear to be the Armitage family crest.
The card has many of the attributes of the picture postcard but lacks the one essential feature for the "First" GB PPC and that is of a printer offering the picture cards to retailers for ongoing sale to the general public. This is a privately produced card for a wealthy family (or company?), not offered for general circulation.
1880 Glasgow "Printed Matter" Card.
This card was attempting to use the special 1/2d Printed Matter rate introduced by The Post Office in 1870. A "half size" 1/2d stamp was introduced to facilitate this and has been used in this case. (the outline stamp box on this card is clearly of the small 1/2d size). The designation "Post Card" was controlled by the Post Office and the ambiguous P.Card has been used here instead. Just to be on the safe side, "Diggings" has been used instead of "Address". The Post Office has "struck back" with a receiving stamp on the picture side, (they were forbidden to do this on a real Post Card and by 1880, this was well understood by everybody) No writing at all was allowed (other than the address) was permitted for the 1/2d Printed Mater rate. This card is a false and limited start. It would only be useful for Valentines, where there is usually no manuscript writing, but even here a post office receiving stamp on the design ruins the idea..
Final Conclusion: Two of these cards are privately printed cards, not for resale. Another card is an early Norwegian PPC. . The Glasgow card is more of a curiosity than anything else, attempting to exploit the 1/2d Printed Matter Rate.
None of them are "The First British Picture Postcard". This title still remains with E.T.W.Dennis in September 1894 with his North Bay Scarborough PPC. and sustained continuous PPC activity thereafter.
EARLIEST GB POSTCARD?? (Non Pictorial)
On Friday 11 Nov 2005 , Historystore Ltd auctioned a 3 inch by 4 inch Lecture Ticket sent through the London Two Penny Post in 1828. It was suggested this might be the earliest GB postcard?
1871 Austrian card, (with address side illustration)
This 1871 Austrian card has a drawing of a dragon around the address . The other side was left blank for a message. The postcard postage rate was 2 Kreuzer at this time. In this card a 5 Kreuzer "letter rate" stamp has been used . The card was registered and payment for this was evidenced with the use of a 10 Kreuzer stamp on the non address side. There is also a registration mark on the address side
Both the sender and the Post Office regarded it as a registered letter.
The first Austrian picture postcards date from round about 1879, at least one exists with a print of a beauty spot on the official 2 Kreuzer postcard