WHAT ARE POSTER STAMPS?

Poster stamps are just what the name implies - tiny posters, stamp-sized advertisements for businesses, events, places, causes.  In some cases they carry designs that were indeed produced as full-size posters.  In other cases they are the primary vehicle for their messages.

Poster stamps originated in the late 19th century, along with postage stamps and modern advertising and printing techniques, and by the early years of the 20th century were extremely popular, especially in Germany.  They were issued as advertising for stores, products, and events, and became a popular collectible.  Their popularity peaked in the nineteen-teens.

Some of my favorite poster stamps are those issued for the Leipzig International Exhibition for the Book Industry and Graphic Arts of 1914.  There are many different designs, some of them issued in multiple different languages or color combinations.   My favorite design is the one used as the official poster for the event, a very dramatic allegorical image showing Prometheus riding a griffon, descending (one assumes) from Mount Olympus bringing fire (symbolizing knowledge?) to mankind.

Over the years I have accumulated as many of the Bugra poster stamps as I could, and recently I began to want to understand more about the event they commemorated.  This set of web pages is the result.

In the process of accumulating these poster stamps, I noticed there were also an unusually large number of postcards issued specifically for the event, so I acquired some of those, and am displaying them here as well.