POSTCARDS FROM THE PAST

1940’s Photochrome Era Postcard

Glossy Finish

TOPIC

CIVIC CENTER

Denver, Colorado

Denver’s Civic Center with mountains in the distance.

Buildings shown are the City and County Building and Library.

The City and County Building was finished in 1932.

Print Year

1940’s

Era

Photochrome Era (1939-ongoing)

“Chrome” postcards began to dominate the scene soon after the Union Oil Company placed them in its western service stations in 1939.  Mike Roberts pioneered his “WESCO” cards soon after World War II.  Three-dimensional postcards also appeared in this era.  By 1960s, the standard size of cards had grown to 4 x 6 inches.

Photochromes are not real photos but rather, printed cards done by a photochrome process.  To distinguish a printed postcard from a real photo postcard, examine it under a magnifying glass and you will see the dot pattern that is characteristic of printed cards.

Printer

Dextone

Made Direct from Kodachrome and Ansco Color

by

Dexter Press Inc. (1920-1977)

"The Post Card King"
Pearl River, New York (1928-1952)

Thomas A. Dexter (1899-1993) was a newspaper publisher, postcard entrepreneur, and horse racer. He opened his first printshop in Park Ridge, New Jersey in 1920. He moved to Pearl River, New York eight years later, and by the 1930’s he was producing postcards, mostly linens but also black & white and hand colored cards covering a wide variety of subjects.

Around 1952 he turned exclusively to photochromes after they moved to West Nyack, when their old shop grew too small.  Most of the photochromes printed by Dexter Press bore the words Genuine Natural Color.

Their early chromes were issued under the name Dextone and tended to be flat and somewhat dull in appearance. As years went by their optical blending techniques improved producing richer and more varied colors.

They sold the company to Consolidated Foods in 1972, with Thomas’ son Robert Reardon staying on as manager. By 1977 slowing business forced them to merge with MWM Color Press, and by 1984 they closed the New York plant and moved to Aurora, Missouri as a subsidiary of MWM Color Press.

In 1980, the two companies combined forces to create MWM Dexter. Since that time, over $30 million in equipment and technology have been invested to provide customers with the best concept-to-completion, full-color printing & fulfillment services.

Publisher

Sanborn Souvenir (1920-1966)
Denver, Colorado

In the early 1920s, Harold F. Sanborn (1899-1974), a native of Colorado, started the Sanborn Souvenir Company in Denver, Colorado. He was a commercial photographer who would take photos and make postcards to sell at local shops. He primarily worked in Colorado and Wyoming.

Sanborn first produced real photo postcards during the 1920’s and 1930’s carrying the Sanborn name. He and his son Bill later went on to produce tinted halftone postcards in the 1940’s and eventually started printing photochromes in the early 1950’s.

Derick Wangaard purchased the company in the 1990s and gained access to over 40,000 of their photographs.

Size

Standard Size: 5 ½ X 3 ½ / 14cm X 8.9cm

Printing Technique

Photochrome 1939-

 4-Color Process printing

Full-color images are created on the printing press by applying separate layers of the Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black inks (CYMK). Photochrome cards were both more realistic looking and less expensive. Thousands of colors can be reproduced by overlapping these CMYK colors in various concentrations. Applied as tiny dots on the paper the four CMYK colors combine to create the visual effect we know as full color printing.

CONDITION

Unused /Unposted

Rounded corners and edges in very good condition.

NO pinholes, tears, creases, smears, smudges, stains, or mold.