Dürkopp Diana

In 1860 Nicholas Dürkopp, with Carl Schmidt, started a factory for the production of sewing machines.  In 1876, Carl Schmidt was handsomely recompensed and "allowed leave".  After that time, the factory started to produce bicycles and became very successful. Cycles under the Dürkopp name continued to be sold until 2006 though manufactured by Biria AG.

Nowadays, Dürkopp Adler AG, manufactures industrial sewing machines, so in a way you could say the company has come full circle.  It is still in Bielefeld, Germany.

This card is a reproduction of advertising published between 1900 and 1914 and was sent to me from Germany.

Duty Free

Today's card was sent from Finland, with the message that in the 70s and 80s it was a great thing for people to take a boat to Sweden.  Duty free drinks were part of the excitement.  That used to be part of the excitement of travelling from the UK to France on the cross-Channel ferries.  However that part of the holiday feeling disappeared with the advent of the European Union.

The last weekend of duty free was at the end of June 1999, a bumper weekend for the cross channel ferry companies when everyone rushed to make the most of the bargains to be had.  The changes in the regulations had been put forward in 1990 but had been strongly opposed by the UK, France and Germany.

Report from the BBC news at the time.

Lord Kitchener's buttons

Lord Kitchener of Khartoum
With Sudanese he overcame
With sudden ease GLOBE does the same!
Let rivals rave and scorners scoff
Just rub it on and rub it off!
Then Helmets, Buttons, brilliant shine:
"GLOBE POLISH" wins along the line!

An early advertising card found amongst my father's collection.

On the reverse it says:
Ask for "GLOBE-TAB" and see that you get it.
The "GLOBE-TAB" is infinitely the Best and Cheapest POLISHING TABLET ever introduced for the Army and Navy.  It is unequalled for imparting a DAZZLING BRILLIANCY to all kinds of metal and is highly recommended for MILITARY BUTTONS and similar uneven surfaces.
ONE PENNY per large tablet (nearly twice the usual size.
N.B. For ordinary surfaces such as helmets, band instruments, we recommend the GLOBE METAL POLISH in TINS.
Sold at all the canteens and military stores.

I haven't been able to find any information whatsoever about "GLOBE-TAB".  It seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.

A post for Sepia Saturday.  A click on the button will take you to the blog.

A hotel in Tunisia

A postcard found in a book has a special charm.  It has even more charm when the finder of the postcard thinks it would be a good idea to send it to me.  Thank you, ersatz soubriquet (of Grit in the Gears).  I'm never sure whether I should capitalise your name or not so please forgive me if I've made a dreadful mistake.

The Hôtel Dar Dhiafa presumably leaves these postcards in the rooms of visitors as a way of spreading the word.  If so, it achieved the purpose.  Someone who was reading "Narrow Dog to Indian River" used it as a bookmark and both the postcard and the book ended up in an Oxfam shop.  From there, the frozen north of England where they speak with funny accents, it has arrived safely in the soft south of England.

The hotel, on the island of Djerba just off the coast of Tunisia, looks fabulous but I can do no better than describe it in its own words from their website:

Patios and terraces make up a maze of favorable spaces for meditation and relaxation with bougainvillea crawling the walls.

The rooms and suites, with atypical charms have double bed in fashioned iron or traditional bed in “Dukan” - mattress on the ground with a small niche at the foot of the bed to drop off the shoes.

Reading and meditation are a quasi natural activity.

The pleasures of the table are honored to offer you a greedy stay, and our promising young chef will enjoy you with his talents for a moment of delight. 

I can say no more.

Large shops, little shops, and advertising

Chichester East Street in the 1970s.  It would have met with the approval of my great-aunt Gladys, as noted on the back by my father.  She judged the worth of a town purely and simply on whether or not it had a Marks and Spencer shop.   Apart from that, though, the street doesn't appear to have been overtaken by the large chains. Yet.  At the far end you can see the Market Cross or Chichester Cross.  (See also City Cross, High Cross, or Buttercross in Winchester)

Another card from the 1970s but this one shows the smaller shops that struggle against the might of the big chains on High Streets these days.  There is a movement to encourage small shops back but how successful that will be in these days of little time and not much more money, I really don't know. 

To see this pre-1902 postcard in more detail, you will need to click on the image.  It shows crowds of people waiting to get into Blackpool Central Pier to add to the crowds already there.  That much is probably visible without magnification, but the advertising is harder to see.  The signs are:

Bovril is King in the Kitchen
Sames Pianos
Mothers try Pritchard's Teething Powder
Kaputine for headache (safe, apparently)
Boots Cash Chemists

Well, Bovril and Boots are still around today and so is Central Pier, but it looks very different today.

Do visit Sepia Saturday and see how other people have interpreted (or not) the theme this week.

Lufthansa

I imagine this is an advertising card because it is published by Lufthansa.  It shows a Boeing 747-400.  That means nothing at all to me, all I know is that I like the image.

Keulen or Cologne

A card showing an old style poster by Willy Sluiter, advertising trains to Keulen (Cologne) in Germany.  The original, created in 1944, is in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. 

The world according to Air France

The wording at the bottom of the card says, in both French and English, "On the world's largest air network, the world's best new aircraft".  On the left is a Lockheed Super Constellation and on the right, a Vickers Viscount.   If these are the world's best new aircraft, I'd probably date the card to the 1950s, but that's only a guess.

I'm a little surprised that Air France was ever the world's largest air network.  According to the Air France Museum website, the network in 1946 was 160,000 km when it was claimed to be the longest in the world, having risen from 46,500 in 1938.  By 1952 it was 250,000 km long but whether it was still the longest, I don't know.  I haven't found equivalent figures for other airlines.

Milka cows

Lisl, Resi and Frida are Milka cows and provide the milk which goes into Milka Swiss chocolate.  They should be treasured for for everyone knows that Swiss chocolate is the best in the world.  Milka, the tenderest temptation since chocolate was invented (it says).

Dr. Thomas' Eclectric Oil

No Risk!  It's worth its weight in gold, the great Internal and External Remedy!  In case you didn't know, Dr Thomas' Eclectric Oil will positively cure:

Toothache ...................... in 5 minutes

Earache ..............................2 minutes

Backache ............................2 hours

Lameness ...........................2 days

Coughs ..............................20 minutes

Hoarseness .........................1 hour

Colds .................................24 hours

Sore throat .........................12 hours

Deafness ............................2 days

Pain of burn ........................5 minutes

Pain of scald ........................5 minutes

I have to say, if the cat is anything to go by, I'd prefer to do without.

The next generation

A reproduction of an ad for French baby food which will, it suggests, produce the next generation of athletes.  Big and strong athletes, with strange smiles.  I'm only glad my mother didn't feed me on it.

Let's go fly a kite

The words from the Mary Poppins song are well known:

Let's go fly a kite
Up to the highest height
Let's go fly a kite
And send it soaring
Up through the atmosphere
Up where the air is clear
Oh, let's go fly a kite! 

The first lines are possibly less well known

With tuppence for paper and strings,
You can have your own set of wings. 

but they remain with me because I remember so well trying to make my own kite from paper and strings.  It never worked, no matter how fast I ran over the sand dunes, just like this little girl.

At least my heavyweight kite was my only worry and my memories of running over and around the dunes are filled with happiness.  This card is sold by a Dutch organisation, Kinderpostzegels, which is committed to supporting children in need both home and abroad, and encourages children to raise money for less fortunate children, "Voor kinderen door kinderen".

This is a post for Postcard Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

When I grow up...

...I'm going to be a surgeon.  Not an easy career for anyone and certainly not one that's easy to fit in with a family but I'm delighted to see this card encouraging girls to think of it as a possibility.  One step on from doctors and nurses.

This was a card from Slovenia advertising an exhibition in Ljubljana showing all the different educational programs available from high school to higher education programs, further education and training, language courses, lifelong learning.

Olive oil

It surprised me in two ways, this card.  First that it's an ad, a very attractive one.  Second, on the reverse it is encouraging people to use olive oil in a Mediterranean diet.  But they already eat a Mediterranean diet in Spain, surely.  It feels like a circular argument there, or a case of selling coals to Newcastle. 

A Girl Reading

This picture of a girl reading is probably very familiar to many.  Painted by Charles Perugini, its title is "Idle Moments" and is most likely a picture of the artist's wife, Kate.  Perugini painted portraits of his wife quite often, one of his best known is "A Girl Reading", so there seems to be something of a theme there.  The reason could possibly be that Kate was Charles Dickens daughter, or perhaps she was just like me in that she always had her nose in a book.

The card with this illustration was in fact an ad card, to publicise "The Prentice Hall Guide to English Literature" which has the painting on its jacket, almost a good enough reason on its own to buy the book.  I do love beautiful books.

One thing stops me from complete admiration though and that's the position of the reader.  Do you often read lying down like that?  It has me asking myself all sorts of questions
How long did she have to pose in that position?
Was the grass damp?
Was the ground hard?
It's nevertheless a beautiful card and one I was delighted to receive.

This is a post for Postcard Friday, which is hosted by Beth Niquette at The Best Hearts are Crunchy.

Persil washes whiter

Persil on voittamaton pesuaine - se onkin ihastuttanut naispiirit  kaikissa sivistysmaissa. Kun Te haluatte saada puhtainta ja raikkainta pesua vähimmällä vaivannäollä, niin ottakaa avuksenne Persil.

"When you want to get the cleanest and crisp while minimizing laundering efforts, then take help from Persil."

This reproduction of an old detergent poster reminds me in style of the old ads we used to have in the UK.  At least this one was a straightforward appeal to minimise effort unlike the ones where one little girl or boy didn't have such sparkling white shirt or dress.  Even as a child I could see what that was trying to do.