Collectible Consuming: Early Twentieth-Century German Poster Stamps

Between the turn of the last century and World War I, poster stamps (Reklamemarken, advertising “cinderellas”) emerged as a powerful new advertising medium in Europe, particularly in Germany. Encouraged by the quality and affordability of chromolithography and the popularity of poster art and other increasingly visual forms of advertising, this hybrid of letter seals, advertising cards, and miniaturized posters developed quickly into an advertising medium in its own right with its own characteristic verbal-visual rhetoric. This article describes first the emergence of the German poster stamp in its historical and aesthetic context as both advertising and popular collectible. It then explores the semiotics of individual poster stamps and poster stamp series. Finally, it analyzes ways in which individual stamps and stamp series mapped consumerism upon contemporary social questions such as the “servant question” (the decline in the number of domestic servants), and the ongoing consolidation of a German national identity, particularly through the use of iconic monuments.