Walch Series B-24,000. How to turn winter into summer.

[Des_Beechey]

In 1905, J. Walch and Sons published their first series of printed colour postcards. They had done hand-coloured cards earlier, but this was their first series of cards printed in colour.
The printer was C.G. Röder of Leipzig, Germany. Walch's agent in London sent them 12 cards from the 1904 Wide Series which were in b&w, and another set of these hand coloured. The printer wasn't impressed and wrote back to the London agent. The London agent wrote to Hobart:

The German printers tell me that they cannot produce good work from these photos as the coloring is too crude They are however making a coloured drawing of one or two views and will submit a proof to give me a quotation.

One of the cards that was sent to the printer was this one, below:

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After Röder's artist had spruced it up, it had become a beautiful summer view, not the drab winter scene with bare tree that had been provided:

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The buildings and fences are all as in the b&W cards, but they provided lush foliage instead of the bare branches. And a beautiful summer sky with fluffy clouds!

In 1905, colour photography was 30 years in the future. The practice was to send the printer b&w cards or photos, and the printer's artists created coloured printing plates by hand. This allowed much scope for improving the picture, or changing it completely as in this case.