For a long time the sending of open documents such as postcards was frowned upon.
1861 could be to protect the copyright Postcard John P. Carlton Philadelphia. In many areas of Europe the postcard around 1870 was officially introduced gradually. First, it was pure text postcard without motive.
In Germany, the motif postcard found by the Franco-German War (1870-71) the rapid dissemination. These postcards showed the conquered territories and supposedly glorious war events generally.
Since then, the Post led an own postcards and greeting postcards, which were initially to buy only in its own stores. 1872 were registered in Germany purchased in other shops postcards.
From about 1900, the postcard sat as usual holiday card by, increasingly substituting the hitherto customary longer Travelogues by letter and was formally established in 1925 as a picture postcard for the promotion of tourism. Around this time Kunstpostkarten were also introduced by museums.
Since 1980, found in Germany, completely independent from the tourism photo postcards in the form of photo art cards, humor postcard and saying postcard becoming common.
Since 1986, Gutrath Verlag (first as Michael G. Gutrath Verlag, then as Gutrath Verlag GmbH) distributes postcards worldwide.
