Advertising Stamps^417Common wisdom holds that a poster must
lure the eye from a distance of five city
blocks (or a quarter of a mile) away and
build to a visual crescendo at five feet. This
means that a successful poster must not only
function in its original size, but also, given
the prescribed distance, at the size of a
postage stamp.
Between the turn of the century
and the late 1920 s when the Sachplakat,or
object poster (a German poster genre that
employed minimal lettering and a simple
image of a product), was at its peak, the
most effective posters were those that could
be printed both enlarged and reduced
without sacrificing any essential visual
information. Lucian Bernhard was the
master of this form. His stark, colorful
images for Priester Matches, Adler Typewriters, and Osram Lightbulbs
were equally suited for mammoth or Lilliputian reproduction. Hollerbaum
and Schmidt, Bernhard’s selling agent and printer, realized the business
potential inherent in this versatile medium and began printing small,
adhesive-backed poster stamps as a service to their advertising customers.
Sure, the term poster stampis a contradiction. But semantics aside,
what began as a means to earn greater printing revenues became a popular
and—like the poster itself— collectible method of increasing advertising
exposure during an epoch when modern advertising was in its infancy.
Poster stamps were affixed to all manner of things where posters would not
fit. Ultimately the genre became a thriving international industry with
thousands of original designs and miniaturized reprises produced annually.
A wide range of products and messages were advertised on these
tiny perforated manifestoes. Insurance agencies, hotels, electric companies,
banks, tobacco, food, clothing, and manufacturing companies were among
the most prolific users. The aesthetic quality was surprisingly high because
many stamps began as larger posters or point-of-purchase displays, and
quite a few were designed by well-known artists. But there was another