Differences between RPPC and printed stock?

[mikeyrebenga]

HI, I am trying to organize my postcard collection into Real Photo Postcards and Mass Printed Cards. I know they say get a jewlers loop and look for the dots, but I have a question regarding that.

Take the following three postcards:

A)

B)

C)

When you zoom into the faces you get three distinct styles:

 A) This is what I have been calling RPPC, real photo postcards. Very smooth, photo-like. no "dots"

B) This is obviously a reproduction or mass produced postcard, noting the printed "dots"

My Question, what would you call "C"? It has some discernalbe "dots" but it is more photo-like than anything. Any takers on what these are?

C) 

Thanks for the help and clarification.

[humean_being]

3 is a collotype, not an RPPC. The recommendation to look for dots is a bit simplistic as it incorrectly assumes that all printed cards were printed with halftone processes. Collotype and other gelatin-based processes were also frequently used, despite being more technologically complex and costly, because they usually produced more photo-like results.

[mikeyrebenga]

Thanks for the quick reply! I assume B was printed with halftone processes?

You know I searched many many sites, and nobody seems to have close up examples of the different types of processes. Maybe I missed it, but they all say the same thing "get a magnify glass and look for dots" which as you point out isn't the whole story.

Thank you.

[humean_being]

I believe "halftone" is more properly reserved for monochrome images, and that (B) is a "chromolithograph", which is the same sort of thing, but using coloured dots (cyan, magnenta, yellow) to allow for the mechanical creation of colour images. "Legion of Andy" is a very good blog that explains about colour reproduction in the context of comic book art: https://legionofandy.com/2016/08/26/ben-day-dots-part-8-1930s-to-1950s-the-golden-age-of-comics/#wor...

Another way that some postcards were coloured was simply to tint a half-tone. That is also quite common. In those, the little dots are all black (rather than coloured, as in your chromolithographic (B) example), with a wash of colour being applied (by hand or mechanically) to a few selected areas of the image afterward.

Generally, once you've seen enough backs on RPPC cards, you can identify RPPCs 99%+ accurately just from the backs. Also, you would very seldom see a coloured printed caption in type, as in (C), printed right over the photo part of an RPPC card. They occasionally tried to do this, but ink didn't adhere well to the glossy side of photo paper and the result was usually very sloppy looking. 

[galfam]

Thanks to all that gave an answer You did so much better than I could have  !!

[solasona]

Just wanted to chime in & let you know about a site that teaches you how to identify print & photographic processes. Not postcard specific, but a fantastic resource for all print/photo related identification.

http://www.graphicsatlas.org/ 

Goes way beyond "looking for dots"...have fun with it! 🙂