Featured French Royalty Post Cards

Hello,

I have a unique booklet of post cards of French Royalty starting with Charlemagne and ending with Napoleon III. I am assuming it was produced sometime after 1873 (the date of Napoleon III's death and last entry in the booklet) however the only references I can find to such a book are individual post cards. The booklet contains hundreds of profiles of kings, queens, courtesans, mistresses. I am not sure if it was purchased like this or some individual painstakingly collected every single one. Any more information on this would be appreciated!

 

Interesting! I do notice that the "ND Phot." printing on the Francis II card is very different from the others you showed. Is that one loose or bound in like the others?

Are all of the "backs" the same as the one you showed? The use of that particular format should be able to at least give us a range of possible age. Same goes for the two different ND Phot logos.

 

Some of them have the fancier ND Phot. mark and others just the generic one. They are all attached in the book. All the backs are the same, someone has written in pencil some further information on the back concerning the individual. I can find other examples of "N.D. Pho" post cards but its usually 1-2 not entire booklets which makes me think this is a created piece.

 

Divided back postcards, like on the two backs you showed, started to be used in 1907.

 

Here's info about "ND phot", the company that apparently was the publisher of the cards with that mark...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurdein

The booklet may have been put together by the distributor.

 

Perfect! Thank you. (good thing I can read French!).

 

You're welcome! Here's more info... in English this time!

"Neurdein et Cie (1860’s-1919)
Paris, France

The Neurdein Studio was founded in 1864 by Etienne Neurdein, son of the French pioneer in photography, Charlet. His brother Antonin managed the studio by himself for a number of years but after 1887 they ran the company together. They produced large quantities of stereo-views and lantern slides depicting scenes in Europe and French North Africa that became more tourist oriented in the 1870’s. Many of these images would later be printed in heliographed albums. They went on to publish many continuous tone, monochromatic postcards of urban French views, nudes, panoramas, military themes, and many scenes from various French colonies and Quebec, Canada. They also provided photographs of paintings for many art cards. Many of their postcards neither carry a name or logo but just the letters N D. In 1920 they united with Levy Sons & Co. to form Levy & Neurdein reunis. Their negatives are now owned by the Roger-Viollet Photographic Agency."

http://www.metropostcard.com/publishersn.html

 

What does the "cover" look like? If they all have the extra length with which to be sewn in, I would not expect them to have been collected individually.

 

The cover is the first photo - just an extra card pasted on the front of the book. They are sewn in however theres no easy way of removing them as they are also "taped" in with a type of medical tape which leads me to believe its someones collection. Also the numbering is out of order. Its quite random although it goes mostly in chronological order.

 

My next question is would this be better to remain as a set or separated out? I have seen some individual cards (of not so famous personalities) for 1-13$ however I would hate to see such a collection separated since it seems complete.

 

That does seem odd for a manufactured booklet.

 

That's easy, offer the whole bound book for whatever price, then if no one bites after a few tries, offer in lots of 10 each, then if................you get the idea.

 

Could have been the booklet was made up by the collector. If not, I think it would have had printing on the cover page. Or, possibly, the owner pasted the card on the cover and there's printing under it.

If the individual cards have holes from being sewn together, or remnants of tape on the front, that could hurt the value if sold individually.

 

Good suggestions. The card paper isnt pierced, the sewing goes through the medical-like tape binding and the cards are stuck on the tape however they are quite stuck on there so maybe Ill just keep it as a set. Thanks everyone for your help!

 

Might this be a salesman's sample book. Rather than chronological order, best sellers at the top or vice versa if they wanted to get rid of slow sellers by showing them first.

 

Ah, that's good that the holes aren't in the cards. If the tape is only on the back of the cards, it won't affect price as much if you do decide to sell them individually.

 

According to the following card, Jeanne of France, from the French Historical Royality dates from c1920 and was done by Levy and Neurdain reunis. The bottom right corner has "ND" similar to yours. Levy & Neurdain formed a partnership in 1920 according to what Pat found.
http://www.ebay.ie/itm/JEANNE-OF-FR...Reunis-No-7-/371014327529?hash=item56622d5ce9

The following ebay page has several postcards of the Royality series plus booklets of other postcards that Levy & Neurdain did.
http://www.ebay.ie/sch/sis.html?_nk...s Rare book of postcards&_itemId=191025452181

--- Susan

 

Oh perfect thank you!