A 100 Year Old Call for Peace

The anniversary of 9/11 and the events at U.S. embassies in the Middle East over the last few days are troubling, but I try to remind myself that most people in the world are are not extremists who intentionally antagonize others, or overreact to criticism of their religion. Too bad they aren't often the ones in power. It reminded me of these poster stamps I recently acquired. While I started with postcards, my interests in paper ephemera have only grown, and I only learned of poster stamps in the last couple of months. 

Poster stamps were produced in the early 1900s to advertise products, and promote fairs, conventions and expositions. They were widely used in Europe as well as the United States. Essentially, they are smaller versions of beautiful full size posters, often designed by famous authors of the day.

The art on some of these was truly gorgeous, as poster stamps were around right about the same time as the height of printing quality. Many of the best printers of these stamps, and postcards for that matter, were based in Germany, and so the outbreak of World War One pretty much ended the golden age of printing. The average quality of printing never quite recovered from the war.

I like this series of stamps not just because of their sentiment, but because they were printed in 1914, at the dawn of horrendous bloodshed that would eventually be pervasive in the 20th century. Even at a time of global tension and mounting calls for war in Europe, these stamps show that there are those who had common sense and hope for a better world.