1915 – A historic colour postcard shows a view across the harbour of Kappeln, Germany. Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com
The story behind the image
Recently I acquired a historic postcard from 1915 which was published by M. Glückstadt & Münden in Hamburg. It shows the harbour of Kappeln in Germany with the majestic St. Nikolai church and several ships, including one very large freight ship. The river is the Schlei (which is actually not a river but a fjord that leads to the city of Schleswig.)
The interesting bit about this is that it’s a colour postcard. As far as I know, colour photography was yet to be invented, so they must have simply coloured an existing black and white photograph. When looking closer into the image, one recognizes large patches of identical colour, especially in the roofs or the walls of the houses. But the image certainly has a realistic charm, thanks to the underlying black and white image that adds many details. So I guess that recipient had been delighted to find such a nice postcard in the mailbox.
As several ancesters of my family come from Kappeln and surrounding villages, this postcard goes to the family archive now.
The high resolution image
| Capture Date | c. 1915 |
| Location | Kappeln, Germany |
| Image Source | 14 x 9 cm postcard |
| Digital Image Source | EPSON Perfection 4870 Photo |
| Digital Image Source Format | TIFF, 48 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Format | JPEG, 24 bits/pixel, sRGB |
| Edited Image Dimensions | 4924 x 2744 Pixels |
| Copyright | Scan © Mark Zanzig/zanzig.com |
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