Adolfo Biener

The earliest known postmark on a postcard published by Adolfo Biener is 1915.  Apart from the marking, Biener's early cards are almost indistinguishable in subject matter and printing style from those of Alberto Valdeveallano.   Archaeological sites, earthquake ruins and portraits predominate.

Unlike Valdeavellano, whose only use of color was in solid or rainbow tones, Biener in the 1920s began publishing a line of postcards printed by a full color lithographic process.  The differences can be noted in the middle example above, as well as in the examples below. These color cards have white borders, and later ones have deckle, or uneven, edges to their white borders.

Like his counterpart in Mexico, German-born Hugo Brehme, Adolfo Biener offered photo processing and photographic equipment and supplies from the United States and Germany.  For some 35 years Biener  also published tourist postcards, along with booklets containing  12 postcards that could be detached and mailed individually.  (Click on the image at above right for the names of the known booklets.)

Biener's real photo postcards generally have numbers and titles that were written on the negatives, which then were printed with white borders on Agfa, Gevaert, Azo or Kodak papers, and signed either by backstamps or blind-embossing.

In the 1930s, a series of over 200 photo postcards published by Adolfo Biener & Cia promoted Guatemala's coffee industry.  Some of the cards are marked with the initials A.R.W., implying that someone other than Biener took the photographs, with Biener having the rights to publish them.  The titles on the front are in Spanish, while the promotional line on the back, "Guatemala produces the best coffee in the world," is printed in Spanish, English and German.  

The real photo postcard at top right was individually printed in a darkroom.   The negative has been titled and numbered "Fabricando Tinajas. Guatemala. 40." Embossed in the lower right corner of the face of the postcard is "Adolfo Biener / Guatemala." The paper on which the negative was printed was manufactured by Azo from the mid-1920s until the 1940s.

To create the postcard at bottom right, an original black and white photo was colored by hand.  The resulting "master" copy was then mass-produced mechanically by a chromo-lithographic process.  The new title is "Indígena de Chinautla, quemando ollas."  It is numbered "Foto-Biener Nr. 1162" and "Propiedad del Editor" is printed vertically down the center of the back.   This example wasn't mailed, but others in the series were postmarked in the 1940s.