Bidspirit auction | Antique Topographic and Architectural Postcard

Antique Topographic and Architectural Postcard Album – Over 40 Original Postcards in Period Cloth Binding – Normandy Coastlines, Bathing Culture, and French Seaside Resorts (circa 1900–1920) - An antique and original postcard album from the golden age of postcards. (La Belle Époque / the Victorian and Edwardian era). The album contains over 40 landscape, architectural, and historical tourism postcards (the album is currently slightly under half full). The postcards offer a photogenic and fascinating record of the fashionable bathing beaches, casino establishments, and wild chalk cliffs of Normandy and northern France at the turn of the twentieth century. Album and Postcard Contents (Key Points): Normandy Coastlines and Early Bathing Culture: The collection includes an early and sought-after color lithograph postcard of the bathing beach at Berck-Plage, depicting its colorful wooden bathing huts, grand casino buildings, and period-costumed vacationers at the water's edge. Also included are panoramic views of the coastal town of Cayeux-sur-Mer and photographic studies of the wild rock cliffs at Varengeville-sur-Mer. Historic Publishing Houses and Photographic Studios: The postcards in the album feature prints from the leading European publishers of the period, including the LL (Louis Lévy) imprint, known for its color lithographs, and the nostalgic Cliché Olive imprint, alongside sharp sepia (antique-brown) photographs and classic black-and-white prints. The album has an original hard cloth binding in olive green with an embossed title in French on the front cover (Cartes Postales). The interior cardboard pages include built-in slot corners for holding the postcards without adhesive. 17 cm. 435 g. Overall good condition. The postcards: well preserved in excellent condition within the slot corners, clean, sharp, free of tears, and free of fading of the photographic layer. The album and binding: the exterior cloth cover is intact and shows light age and wear flaws (light abrasions at the edges and small old adhesive marks on the back of the cover, as documented in the photographs). The cardboard pages and slot corners are complete and stable; scribbles and handwritten markings appear on some pages.