tps.org.au

This card published by Andrew Mather & Co., Hobart (Printer's Index No.93769) has the "Empire Postcard" logo
on the back.
I am familiar with real photo cards with this logo on the back as several local photographer used the stock (R.C. Harvey
almost exclusively up until WWI) but I haven't noticed a printed card from a "local publisher" produced by Empire Postcards
before.

A couple of questions

1) does anybody have any more examples of "Empire Postcard(s)" citing Mather or anyone else as a publisher (mainland states cards too)
they can share in this topic?
2) does anybody have any information they can share in regard to Empire Postcards and their production of printed postcards and photographic
postcard stock produced for use by photographers?

Referring to my trusty list, I show below a list of all the cards that I have listed under 'Empire'. I may have others if they had a clearly identifiable publisher who is already in my list.

Cataract Gorge, Launceston U "R.J." 22
"Derwent" under full steam M
Falls, Sandfly U
Lindisfarne from Natone Hill U
Little Falls, Sandfly. U
Natural Pavement, Eaglehawk Neck M RP
Remarkable Cave, Port Arthur M RP
Scenery near Cascade Gardens U H D Russell
Shot Tower 1908
The Bluff, Bellerive U "Emmie"
Tin Dressing Sheds, Mt Bischoff mine, Waratah U
Tynwald' New Norfolk U Scruffy
Waratah U RP
Wesleyan Church, Mt Nicholas (?) U
Woodbridge Methodist Church M
Woodbridge Town Hall
Woodbridge Village M

Where I have recorded it, M is mint and U is used (not necessarily postally -0 may just be lots of WoB). RP means Real Photo. Only three have an identifiable publisher, but "R.J." presumably had at least 21 other cards. BTW, the 'scruffy' is just a comment on the state of the card!

A year or so ago Ross posted a query about printed postcards with an "Empire" logo. Ross pointed out that "Empire" was a brand of postcard-back printing paper, but he had a printed postcard with the Empire logo incorporated. His card was published by A. Mather & Co.
I am putting the Mather cards on my web site at the moment, and have come across two more cards of this type. The front and back of one of these cards is shown below.
There are two bits of evidence that show that this card above, and Ross' card, was printed by C.G. Roder, Liepzig, Germany, as other Mather, McVilly & Little, and Walch postcards were. Firstly, microscopic examination shows that the card was printed by three layers of lithography (red, yellow, blue) with a black collotype layer superimposed for emphasis. This was the usual printing method of C.G. Roder for coloured cards.

Secondly, the card has a printers number of 93772 on the back, at bottom right. This number is in the position, font and colour of Roder numbers. We can date Roder printer numbers from other sources: this one, 93772, was printed in 1906, with agrees with the date in the correspondence of 25 April, 1907.

Recall the mechanism of how colour cards were printed at the time. As there was no colour photography, a black and white photographic print was sent to the printer in Germany. The colourists invented colours for the image, from which three colour printing plates were prepared. For the back of the card, the printer did the layout according to the instructions from the customer, or if none were supplied or were inadequate, they used their house style and their own judgement.

My suggestion, somewhat outlandish, is that Mathers sent a black and white print on Empire back paper to the printers. The printers, having never seen Empire printing paper before (it was an Australian product) assumed the logo on the back was Mather's logo and incorporated it in the design of the back of the card.

Does anyone believe me?

Des Beechey

I certainly do! An excellent piece of deduction there Des - many thanks!!

In the last post about Empire photo printing paper, I asserted that this was Australian made paper, because their logo incorporates a lion and a kangaroo. I looked them up on Trove, and found that it was produced by the Empire Works Co., which was in Sydney. They produced a range of photographic papers and also glass plates. Here is an advertisement from 1908. I wonder if they were the first to be producing photo printing paper in Australia? There are no advertisements for them after 1915, so I wonder what happened to them?

MT WELLINGTON FROM SANDY BAY - Andrew Mather & Co. (Printer's index 93774)