Souvenir cards

Gotta love the locomotives on these cards. These were both issued at the union convention and then reissued with an embossed "ROMPEX" for a big stamp show in Denver, May 8-10. There was also a very large card which featured all the vignettes together, but only 330 were produced.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Hey, I just realized we passed the 500th post on this thread! Crack open the champagne!

:thumb:

 

:cheers:
This is a beer party not fancy champagne!
We collect Souvenir cards not the originals

 

Hey, the BEP just posted their 2012 souvenir card series on their website! I really like the look of these this time. They did a nice job for their 150th birthday.
http://www.moneyfactorystore.gov/2012intaglioprintsubscriptionprogram150thanniversaryseries.aspx

You might notice the Lincoln engraving is from a very early card posted earlier:
http://www.cointalk.com/t94663-31/#post1276388
You won't be able to find a print of it any cheaper than the 2012 card.

 

I plan on subscribing to the BEP's 150th Anniversary Series, coming out soon.

 

Close-ups of the 2012 series -- these look even better when you can see the detail. I can hardly wait!

 

The new cards for the B.E.P.'s 150th Anniversary are a nice concept and commemoration idea. The selection of vignettes for each card seems appropriate as well. I personally like the Lincoln (Blue) card the most of the three. I note that this card, in particular, doesn't have the distracting background image under the vignettes that the other two do have. I assume the background images on the other two cards were not intaglio printed. Those two cards that do have a ghosted background image are too "busy" looking with their multiple layers of images and text encroaching on vignettes. I think it's a little beyond the explanation that they layer vignette images over ghosted background images for foiling further reproduction, and equally, they have the warning printed on the bottom of each of these cards not to do so.

I am interested to hear which elements were intaglio printed. Probably only the vignettes were, but maybe the boarders are intaglio printed elements as well. I assume that the text around the Green card portrait wasn't intaglio printed either. I would be interested to hear about the two portraits (Green and Brown) to know if the faded area at their outermost parts were in anyway altered from their original dies. They do seem somewhat pulled back to allow the text wrapped around the Green card and faded near the head of the portrait in the Brown card, which is bumping into the corner of the building vignette.

The unfortunate inconsistency in design elements of these comes with the application of various 150th Anniversary logos. They used a different one on each card! The designers seemed not to know where best to place this logo based on available space for balancing multiple vignettes on each card. The choice to use the heavy boarders really takes up a lot of available space on these cards, too. I personally think the 150th logo works best in the Green card, as a header for each card. It's arched design allows it to fit well in that top center boarder notch. Had they placed them all in the same position and at the same scale their consistency would lend better to the overall montage of vignettes being the focal points, and the logo wouldn't be as much of an intrusion, nor distraction to the vignettes.

Sadly, on these cards the pale yellow 150th logo is very weak as a design element, particularly compared to the boldness of the borders and vignettes. The yellow logo gets lost on these cards since they choose an 'antiqued' yellowish paper stock to emphasize age and the B.E.P.'s long standing in this sesquicentennial commemorative concept. That the yellow logo is hard to see on this paper stock accounts for their using the black/yellow 150th logo on the Brown card. That logo is floating over open space and wouldn't contrast enough from the color of the paper stock had they not put some black into the design. The same logo would stood out more on the Green card where it is located if they used the black/yellow logo. The inconsistent scale and different logos on each card: one in yellow, one in yellow/black and the other with muted red and blue flanking it really diminished the attempt to add an additional design element, and one that is pretty important given it's the theme of these cards.

The B.E.P.'s digital layout skills don't show as one their strong points. It's clear that the old vignettes are still more powerful and maintain a dynamic presence on the paper that they are printed on. I hope I am wrong and the designers were not fiddling with the faded edges of the portraits. I wonder how prevalent the noodling with vignettes is with the capabilities of digital layout? Do they alter the original dies or still print the vignettes from originals at 100% scale? I know they used to but maybe things have changed without much being said. A comparison from earlier prints of these vignettes to that of the new prints would have to be made to see what if anything were altered for the sake of producing these cards.

While it only would have made the overall design of these cards more busy, the B.E.P. might have used this stronger color flag version of the 150th logo that they have up on the main page of the B.E.P. site:



I do like the logos they created and the choice of vignettes, I thing these cards just show there were too many hands in their creation and not enough pull back to add so many elements to the final design, even doing so with such wide inconsistency.

 

At long last and much prodding, the BEP finally sent me an image of the 2009 card in this Veteran's Day series -- the only one I'd never seen! Not as nice as having the card itself, but at least my image collection is complete now. If anyone has one of these they don't know what to do with, let me know.

 

Chris, I learned yesterday that the frames on these cards are indeed intaglio.

 

:thumb:Thanks for the update.

 

My latest addition....

 

Very nice! :thumb:

 

Thank you.......I stole this one for $2.00 plus $1.50 shipping

 

My latest addition finally arrived today!

 

How can you go wrong???

 

Very nice, Darryl -- that means mine should be along any day now!

 

Hadn't seen this thread before, pretty cool stuff for sure!

I've picked up a few of these as I've bought collections at auction but I really don't know much about them.

This one, from the 1981 ANA Convention has a Canal Bank $5000 Note that is pretty neat. I've seen other examples sell online for around $10-$15 or so.



These other souvenir cards I have, I've never seen anywhere else and really don't know what they may be worth. They are from the New England Numismatic Association Convention in 1999 and are hand signed and numbered. They feature a $2 Note from the Bank of Poultney Vermont and it has pretty nice color to it. I have numbers 79, 80 and 81.

 

Totally agree.


And welcome Illini to the topic.


I wish I had more to share with you guys on these but there are no more to post from this collection for now.

 

These cards are getting addictive.....

 

They really can be Steve and the good news is they are cheap so it's great to get examples and you don't worry about people actually touching them.