Greetings cards must have been quite big business in early 20th-century Malta, seeing how many publishers claimed a slice of the cake. I will dip into my collections to illustrate various trends – postcards expressly printed as greetings cards, ordinary postcards overprinted with messages, folded cards with a Malta illustration on one flap and a note, sometimes in rhyming verse, on another, or custom-made, ‘bespoke’ cards individually printed to order.
Both the big fish and the small fry tried their luck. Raphael Tuck and Sons, the giant London card-publishing firm in business since 1866, was among the first to hit the Maltese market (recorded in 1905) with brightly-coloured Malta scenes they branded as ‘oilettes’, many overprinted or embossed in red (and in blue or gold, but rarely) with generic greetings or specific Christmas or New Year’s messages.
Umberto Adinolfi, an Italian publisher who settled in Malta and later acquired British nationality, during World War I flooded the Malta market with real photographic greetings cards, mostly hand-coloured, in English, French and Italian. He obviously targeted the considerable number of British and French servicemen stationed in Malta.
I have never come across an early greetings card or postcard printed in Maltese. Such variety exists in early greeting cards that even a superficial taste will require more than one instalment.
My choice ranges from the turn of last century to just after the end of World War II. It includes the unusual or unexpected, from original watercolours, each individually painted, to photographs, hand-embroidered specimens, embossed paper. The choice mostly depended on the buyer’s budget. The only common factor is the cards’ Malteseness.
Personalised Christmas card from Villa Messina, Guardamangia, c. World War II.
Christmas 1940. A coloured and embossed greetings card showing Floriana, late 1930s.
A San Anton Palace greetings card used in 1945.
Christmas greetings from Marsamxett and Gwardamangia, 1940s.
One of the earliest overprinted greetings cards published by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar, c. 1900.
One of a series of Christmas cards, with Malta scenes, c. 1930.
Launching a torpedo from a UK warship, used in a 1930s greetings card inscribed Kalkara.
A hand-coloured Maltese patriotic postcard showing Queen Alexandria and the Union Jack, used in World War 1.
A personalised 1930s Christmas card, from the Red Lion Bar, perhaps in Marsa.
A Raphael Tuck oilette postcard with raised printing in red, used in Malta in 1909.
From the earliest series of Malta greeting postcards, postmarked 1900.
A four-page greeting card c. 1920, illustrated by a photo of Senglea Point.
Greetings card hand-painted in watercolour, 1930s
A composite greeting postcard published by Paul Sapienza, c. 1910s
All were either made in Malta, made for Malta or used in Malta.
A catalogue of early greeting cards in Malta proves virtually inexhaustible; the creativity behind them, rather uneven. Some displayed imagination, others just repeated formulas and patterns.
While pre-war ‘Maltese’ postcards actually printed in Malta are almost unique, rather than rare, those printed abroad abound. Blame this imbalance on the primitive technical tardiness of Maltese letterpress printing machinery, then unable to compete successfully with the finish and sophistication of foreign products.
All that changed dramatically after the Independence boom, when the Maltese printing industry leapt giant steps forward – the better domestic products now became indistinguishable in quality from those produced in foreign centres of excellence.
A card from the Malta series of ‘oilettes’ published by the London firm Raphael Tuck and Son, embossed with a red greetings overprint, c. 1905.
A masonic greetings card by Apelles (Alfred Gerada), 1930s.
A humorous Christmas greetings postcard from Marsascala, c. 1920. Significance unclear.
Personalised greetings card from Baron D’Amico Inguanez showing his historical ‘smoking room’, dated 1952.
A hand-embroidered patriotic greeting card, used in Malta in World War 1.
An early photographic greeting postcard, showing St Barbara Bastions, Valletta, probably in the 1920s.
A 1930s greeting card, with an embossed border and a round window over an old photo of Mdina.
Printed greeting cards, even in their earlier incarnations, welcomed their exotic cousins – the novelty cards, which distanced themselves from the bog-standard monotony of plain text. Top of the list would be the hand-embroidered cards, birthday, Christmas, patriotic, best wishes, good luck, congratulations or even condolences cards.
The popularity of these erupted during World War 1. Cottage industries produced the hand needlework but anxious wives, sweethearts, mothers or sisters embroidered the more moving ones and mailed them to soldiers on far-away active service, including Malta.
Other ‘novelty’ greeting cards included those printed on silk, on parchment, (real or ersatz) on bark, those in a metallic finish, hand-coloured photographs, those with embossed lettering or frames, those hand-painted in watercolour, those cu out in eccentric shapes – like an angel, a ballerina, an elephant, a football or a holly leaf.
The ‘lenticular’ ones that mimicked a 3D effect, I believe came later.
Cards consisting of two or four pages would be held together with a string or ribbon tied in a bow.
All images from the author’s collections.