FEPA News

FEPA NEWS 45 41 FEPA Exhibiting Notes on FIP Guidelines for Picture Postcard Exhibits 1 Dr. Witold Mikoł ą jczyk, Polish Philatelist Union, writes: I made my debut in the Picture Postcard Class at the EFIRO 2024 World Philatelic Exhibition in Bucharest with the exhibit “Bojanowo Commune. Sentimental postcards“. Based on this experience, I wanted to share my comments on the presentation of material in the exhibits. A postcard is not only the interesting view on its obverse, but also its reverse. In the case of the obverse, studying a postcard involves determining the graphic technique in which it was made. This area is probably the most difficult. It is necessary to have knowledge of the graphic techniques themselves and also the appropriate instrumentation, allowing a close-up of parts of the postcard, to “try” to determine the technique used to produce it. The reverse, on the other hand, identifies the publisher of the postcard, the year of issue, the print run and the registration number of the postcard in question. In the case of photographic postcards, it is information about the author of the photograph itself and the manufacturer of the photographic paper used to issue it. This entire area, as far as equipment and literature allow, was used by the authors for the descriptions of the postcards presented in the exhibit at EFIRO 2024. The Description I would like to draw your attention to the description as an element of an exhibit. In the case of my exhibit, descriptions were based on Polish and German literature on philocarty, studies in art, graphics and printing, as well as state archives, official records and address books in search of information on postcard publishers. For every collector of postcards, the rarity of the postcard including the (printing) technique, the author of the print, the print run and the publisher are important. In the case of the publisher it is extremely difficult to obtain additional information such as whether this particular publisher had a printing house or printing plant, if he was a trade entrepreneur or only ran a shop, if he published books or magazines or if he was a photographer or maybe a public institution. Did he specialise in postcard publishing or was he just an occasional postcard publisher? What was a quantitative estimate? In what languages and what types of postcards did he publish? The organisers of an exhibition of illustrated postcards, held in 1922 at the Brussels Book Museum, divided them into the following categories: 1) news, i.e. advertisements and announcements 13) official, i.e. issued by the government 2) charity postcards 14) political 3) commemorative postcards 15) portraits of famous people 4) flowers and fruit 16) propaganda 5) war postcards 17) miscellaneous 6) humorous postcards 18) sporting 7) illustrations of books and journal 19) theatrical and musical 8) events of the day 20) uniform 9) art (salons, museums) 21) with views 10) flirtatious and romantic 22) pornographic 11) fashions 23) with animals 12) national, i.e. heraldry, folk costumes 1 https://www.f-i-p.ch/wp-content/uploads/FIP-PP-Guidelines-2018.pdf