ANS ACQUIRES SOUVENIR CARD COLLECTION

The ANS Library now has a great collection of souvenir cards, thanks to longtime donor and ANS life fellow Bill Burd. What is a souvenir card you ask? Mellone's Photo Encyclopedia of Souvenir Cards—a copy of which was kindly included with the donation—offers a definition. Generally, souvenir cards meet three criteria distinguishing them from other collectible cards, such as postcards: (1) they were created as mementos of a person, occasion, or place and were never intended for any other purpose, (2) they present the finest examples of printing and engraving, and (3) they are printed on premium card stock using engraved steel plates, i.e., the intaglio process.

The Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) has been the main producer of souvenir cards in the United States, inaugurating its modern program in 1969, though such cards have been made since the nineteenth century. Early cards are known as "forerunners." Many of the cards depict one side of a bank note. Postage stamps are the other major category. Some cards just have vignettes, the detailed illustrations placed on banknotes and stock certificates to make them harder to counterfeit.

Private bank note printers, like the American Bank Note Company, also issued cards. Some were made at coin and stamp shows and for various societies. An official alphanumeric system was created to keep things straight, with letters indicating the series: forerunners (F), BEP (B), U.S. Postal Service (PS), American Numismatic Association (ANA), and so on. Many foreign countries also produce the cards.

The group that helps make sense of all of this is the Souvenir Card Collectors Society, which maintains a highly useful catalog of the cards and makes available back issues of its journal.

The beauty of these cards lies in the intaglio printing, often done from original nineteenth- and early twentieth-century plates, resulting in crisp reproductions offering the same visual and tactile sensation of a brand-new note printed for circulation—at bargain-basement prices. The print lacks only the serial numbers.

The Burd donation contains nearly all the BEP cards, lacking mostly those relating to postage stamps. There are also about seventy-five of the semi-official cards (SO), a category reserved for security printers like American Bank Note. There are some modern forerunners, ANA cards, and other types in the donation, all adding up to a great resource for studying and enjoying the artistry and history of financial printing.

To read the complete article, see:
Souvenir Card Collection Donated to the ANS Library (https://numismatics.org/pocketchange/souvenir-card-collection-donated-to-the-ans-library/)

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