Divided back, embossed postcard, unused with writing. Copyright 1909, H. Wessler. Series:  422.

Price:  $7.00

A Peaceful Easter.…

Chicks rule this year…and this is another beauty, a charmer (that face!) Our chick appears in an oversized eggshell, the top broken off; egg and chick comfortably nestled in a cluster of lilies of the valley. Note how very well-done the subtle shading is around the shell and flowers, and the white decorative trim at top and bottom is beautiful, especially falling as it does on that shade of gray for the background.

In pencil, on the reverse, is written:   “Verne from Aunt Bertha.”  And with no loss of elegance from front to back, the publisher’s lily design (a bonus for Easter, we reckon 😉 ) divides the back, and the top corner holds a matching stamp box.

A publisher mystery……..solved:  H. Wessler is Hugo Wessler, per the invaluable, Publishers’ Trademarks Identified by Walter E. Corson.

Who was H. Wessler? At the time of this post, no identifying records had been found…….Later we discovered his full name with postcard reverse design cross-referenced in the Walter E. Corson publication…..There’s a Hugo Wessler, born about 1879 in Germany and living in New York, as a possible match. Advanced book searches only reveal snippet views such as the initial one we’d already found:  He’s mentioned in a Google book snippet along with John Wensch (see prior post), as both being importers and producers of beautiful greeting and postcards. We presume that Wessler, like Wensch, was of German ancestry. Quite a number of postcards can be found online for him, but none showing the full name. This is the second H. Wessler we have on LCG:  See Just A Few Lines From.

Sources:  Lighter, Otto & Reeder, Pearl. Hobbies. Vol. 59, p. 147. 1954: Lightner Publishing. Google snippet. Accessed April 16,  2017.

Corson, Walter E. Publishers’ Trademarks Identified. Ed. James Lewis Lowe. Norwood, PA:  1993. (print).