Catalogue
Publisher: Ballerini & Fratini
Country: Italy (Florence)
Publication Era: 1940s
Notes:
The publishing house Ballerini & Fratini Montespertoli was founded in 1912 in Florence. Since its inception, the company has been at the forefront of innovative printing techniques and was the first company to specialize in greeting cards.
Cards are numbered on the back. Shared images with:Valentine & Sons Ltd
Typical address side of a Ballerini & Fratini postcard
BF001
BF002
BF003
BF004
BF005
BF006
Cat. Nos 10 - 12 are reserved for future use.
BF007
BF008
BF009 1941
BF013
BF014
BF015
BF016
BF017
BF018 1946
BF019 1941
BF020
BF021
BF022
BF023
BF024
To share or not to share? - that is the question.
I have stated above that Ballerini & Fratini shared images with Valentine & Sons.
On closer inspection, this appears to be not strictly true.
Let us take a more detailed look by comparing pairs of cards.
(Please ignore the differences in colour shades. These are not all my own scans).
Ballerini
Valentine
Ballerini
Valentine
Ballerini
Valentine
Clearly, one company was copying the other's images.
Whether this was tolerated or done by agreement, or even illegally, is impossible to determine now.
A Brit would probably say:
"Hey, Valentine was a reputable company. They would never copy from some Italian mob".
I guess an Italian would maintain the opposite view.
Anyone know for sure?