The modern Maltese marketplace has never suffered a dearth of commercial publicity, especially in the postcard medium. 

These mostly promoted the hospitality industries – hotels, guest houses, tourist accommodation and transport, restaurants, pubs, spas, bars, health farms, cruises and the like.

Literally hundreds, if not thousands of them have been issued, often distributed for free, and, presumably, instantly ditched.

The Amaro Ramazzotti promoted its digestive in the 1920s with a series of postcards, including one of Grand Harbour.

Much scarcer are publicity cards to advertise businesses other than hospitality. 

They exist, but in far fewer numbers. I intend to feature them by age, starting with the earlier ones, to be followed by the later outcrops of cards not targeted to tourists.

L. Mifsud promoted his radio store and Telefunken agency in Prince of Wales Road, Sliema, in the 1940s.

The earlier ones mostly come in monochrome, sometimes without real creative graphics – only a printed message, but with meaningful social undertones nonetheless.

The passenger cruise ship Carinthia enticed emigrants from Malta to New York in 1923 by advertising cheap fares.

In the 1930s you could buy a brand-new British motor car, a Morris Minor saloon, for the equivalent of €350, and the steamship Carinthia, serving mass emigration, advertised first to third class crossings to New York in 1928 ‘irħas ferm’. 

In the Victoria Bank, Strada Reale, Valletta, Giuseppe Busuttil offered banking services and retailed jewellery in the 1920s.

At the same time, the Victoria Bank run by Giuseppe Busuttil from Strada Reale, 54, Valletta, telephone number 321, besides its main Bureau de Change business, also publicised itself as a jeweller: ‘Gold and precious stones, gold and silver watches – Prices beyond competition’.

Most of these businesses no longer exist

Carsons Malta Wine and Mineral Waters Factory advertised through this postcard in the 1930s.

Most of these businesses no longer exist, like the Carsons Malta Wine and Mineral Water Factory, the Centre for Malta Made Goods, opposite the Customs House, Amabile Mifsud Malta Lace and Jewellery, and the Crown Canning Works – all gone.

Luigi Gusman of Floriana in the 1930s promoted Dunlop Tyres through postcards reproducing a poster by a German graphic artist.

Graphics rarely rise above dullness and mediocrity, but some exceptions shine, like a postcard for Dunlop tyres retailed in the 1930s by Luigi Gusman of Floriana, a monochrome rendition of a superb poster by the German designer Augustus Weber-Brauns.

Romeo Zammit & Co. Crown Canning Works circulated this postcard in the 1920s.

Morris Minor sedans were on sale in Malta in the 1930s for £150.

A Malta lace and jewellery outlet belonging to Amabile Mifsud in Valletta distributed this postcard in the 1920s.

All postcards from the author’s collection

Postcard advertising the Banco di Roma, 1920s, in the Verdelin palace, Bishop Street, Valletta.

Mifsud Garage, Vittoriosa, in the 1950s, run by the Gellel and Mifsud families. It promised smart uniformed drivers and two-way radios.