Oldest British picture postcards

[Colin]

Does anyone know where one may view examples of the oldest British picture postcards? The oldest one found appears to be the artist-drawn view of Scarborough published by E.T.W. Dennis and posted in September 1894. I have two or three British PPCs from 1896, but nothing earlier. There must be such items being handled by dealers in "better" postcards or selling at high-end auctions. Do they ever end up in collections viewable by mere mortals like me?

[About Postcards]

Below is a link to the web site with the claim that E.T.W. Dennis published the first British Picture postcard. The page has clickable images of the card(s).

http://www.guernsey.net/~gtwebber/firstgb.htm

The same site also presents some information about the company and its early history at the link below..
http://www.guernsey.net/~gtwebber/index.htm

[Colin]

Thanks, Linda. I did not know about the Guernsey website, and the postcards reproduced there as well as the accompanying text were most interesting and informative. It must have taken a while before postcard collecting caught on in Britain. Before September 1894 a British postcard was a preprinted 1/2p or penny card with no picture - not something most people would want to save. And it's possible that postcards of the E.T.W. Dennis variety were few and far between. By 1897 there was a vogue for German-produced postcards of the Gruss Aus type showing British town views, but even well before WWI put an end to that business the Gruss Aus model with its bright colors, local flowers and high quality engraving never really fit the British temperament that well. Your typical British court card of the 1890s is a more pedestrian affair, often in a single color - black, blue or sepia - and skipping the frills, prettiness and sentimentality of so many views of German, Austrian and Swiss towns. Would it be too much to conjecture that the postcard boom of the early 1900s matched the craze for travel of the same period, and that before 1900 there was just a smaller market of tourists who would be the main purchasers and senders of postcards?

Lots of conjectures and a dirth of hard facts. I would welcome feedback from you or other postcard.co.uk members.