The three newest postcard books hitting my stash.
What it is: “The Queen Art and Image”
What you get: 20 postcards from the National Portrait Gallery (UK) collection.
From photographs of Queen Elizabeth as a young new ruler, to a mother, to the long serving monarch to art from the (I think) annual official portrait, this collection gathers together some of the finest (and .. less fine) portraits.
Some of the more interesting works include a picture of the Queen made from tiny pictures of Princess Diana, and a very modern art portrait. There’s also wonderfully quirky news snaps of Her Majesty being more herself.
Quality: Excellent. The colours are rich and bold, the cards are a good weight and have a matt back for easy writing on. Each card contains full information about the work. They are “bound” to a taped spine, and easy to separate without leaving residue.
Would I buy again? When these are all sent out, I will buy another copy.
You’d be surprised at the number of people who want Royal cards, which is why I bought these. They are great looking, handle well and printed sharply.
Recommended!
And of Dinosaurs:
What it is: Dinosaurs by Dover Publications.
What you get: 12 cards, each featuring a painting of a different dinosaur.
The cards feature slightly dated looking paintings of Dinosaurs – the sorts of illustrations that were used a lot in non fiction books in the 1980s. They might well be, as Dover uses archive images to print their postcard packs.
Quality: Good, but not great. The printing is fine, although the paintings look a little bit muddy (I suspect that’s the paintings themselves not the prints though). The weight of the cards is light, they are more a heavy paper than a light card making them very flimsy feeling.
Would I buy again: Nope. There’s more to be said about these Dover cards, which I will finish saying below because -
- Now we have bunnies.
What it is: Beatrix Potter by Dover Publications
What you get: 12 cards featuring images from the Beatrix Potter books.
The photograph isn’t really representative of the cards as it’s blurred and since it’s 11:30pm I can’t be bothered taking a new one. Lazy! Featuring the rabbits, pigs and other creatures Potter made famous, these cards fall just short. Most of them have excessive white space due to the shape of the image chosen, and the paintings look a bit washed out compared to the ones in the books.
Quality: See notes for Dinosaurs above.
Would I buy again: Nope.
Some general notes about the Dover postcard booklets.
Ugh, getting these loose from the pack is tricky work, they are well and truly glued in. Not only to the spine, but also to each other. No matter how careful and gentle you are when you separate them, they will show damage to both the front and back. This can be trimmed off with a paper cutter (and will be as I’ll use them for postcrossing and people tend to prefer well presented cards) but really with the many binding options for postcard books, trimming isn’t something that should be needed.
So you do end up with torn backs and images torn off the front on the spine side, which is really disappointing and not a problem I’ve ever had with postcard books before. I think from now on I’ll avoid the Dover books, regardless of popularity of the subject.
