'F. S.' Publishers

"London View Co. Ltd."

Provisional Company History

In the early 1900s the boom in the number of post cards being purchased and used was accompanied by very many companies trying to get on the band wagon, often encouraged by continental printing firms that large print runs worked out a lot cheaper per card. Many of these upstart companies soon failed because they didn't realize that the hardest part of making money was getting the cards into the shops - because of the need for a salesman to go from shop to shop. And once you got your salesman through the door the more different types of card you could sell the better. If you got things badly wrong - and Wrench is the prime large company example - you went out of business and some companies, such as Thridgould, did well selling large packs of assorted surplus (often bankruptcy stock) cards.

 The "London View Company" seems to have been a short-lived wholesaler who worked in association with an unnamed Saxony printer. The idea seemed to be that a company wanting to sell a wide variety of types of cards could get ready-made examples with their own company on. The best example relates to the "F S" cards where an artist produced many different sets of comic cards to attempt to compete with the excellent comic cards produced, for example, by Tom Browne for Davidson Bros. All "F S" cards were produced after the company had become the London View Company Limited in the first half of  1906.

It seems that the company started in 1905 (earliest posting date recorded 15 March 1905), apparently in Aldergate Street, London, became a limited company in 1906 and in August 1907 the London View Company Ltd failed. This raises a lot of questions - which are currently being researched.

1. Did those running the company (unfortunately no names yet) switch their alliance to other companies. It is probably not a coincidence that the earliest know examples of the Brighton View Company are dated 1907. The fact that the first cards produced by the East London Publishing Co are dated 1908 is possibly a coincidence, but see It is very Breezy for why it might be relevant.

2. Assuming "F S" is Fred Spurgin what did he do next? He would have had work in progress which he would want to complete and sell, and he needed a new regular publisher - something he achieved with Inter-Art in 1911 and even more successfully with Art and Humour between 1915 and 1925.

3. A number of the companies which had been selling "F S" cards continued to sell comic cards. In some cases, such as Vertigen, some of these (unsigned) may be by "F S". In other cases they we selling cards by a new artist in 1908

4. Who was responsible to the "F S" cards which appeared in the USA in 1907/8 after the London View Company had closed.

5. Many green backed reprints of "F S" cards (unsigned) appeared between 1908 and 1916. In addition (with similar backs) there are unsigned cards in the "F S"" style and others which are clearly by other artists.