M Sternberg, Wholesale and Retail Postcard Dealer [c.1906-c.1914]

Submitted by David on Tue, 06/21/2016 - 21:20

M. Sternberg was a postcard publisher in early 20th-Century Hong Kong. Here's their view of Queen's Road Central:

Queen's Road Central

 

Who: I guess that the man behind the company was Moritz Sternberg [1]. Apart from the similarity of the names, the mentions I've found of him show he was the proprietor of The Colonial Hotel and later the International Hotel. I can imagine that work put him in touch with visitors to Hong Kong, and the opportunity to sell postcards. eg, several of Sternberg's postcards show locations that visiting sailors would have been familiar with:

Sailors & Soldiers Home Praya East

 

Sailors and Soldiers Home

 

St Peter's Church, Praya West

 

What: From the Sternberg postcards I've seen, he only sold postcards printed on a printing press, not the "real photo" postcards that were printed using a photographic process.

I prefer the real photo postcards, as they are usually much sharper and so there is a lot more detail to see in the picture. Still, the printed postcards have the advantage that they could be printed in colour, like the examples shown above. Don't rely on the colours being historically accurate though. These prints are all based on black & white photographs that have had the colour added later. In some case we've seen the same view used for several different postcards, each with a different choice of colours!

 

Where: The back of that Queen's Road postcard has the text:

Published by M. Sternberg, Wholesale and Retail Postcard Dealer at No. 51 Queen's Road Central and at No. 34 Queen's Road Central, Hongkong.

Let's take a look at the 1911 Juror's List [2] to see if it mentions those addresses...

Just one match, showing "Arndt & Co." were also at 34, Queen's Road Central. They were "Importers, Exporters, Merchants, Government Contractors and Engineers", so no obvious business connection with Sternberg.

Next year's 1912 Directory & Chronicle [3] shows that Sternberg had moved:

STERNBERG, M., Tobacconist, Smokers' Requisites, Post Card Dealer - Old Post Office Building

They hadn't moved far though. The Old Post Office Building was on the corner of Queen's Road Central and Pedder Street.

 

When: The MetroPostcard website lists the publisher M. Sternberg as active between the years 1905-25 [4].

So far the mentions of Moritz I've found in Hong Kong records cover the years 1894 to 1909. And though I found the company, M. Sternberg, listed in the 1912 Directory & Chronicle [3], there's no sign of them in the later editions for 1917, 1920, or 1922. So maybe they weren't in business til as late as 1925?

As support for that idea, the Sternberg postcards I've seen have been dated to the 1900s and 1910s, eg these postcards related to the Peak:

Peak Tram, lower terminus

 

Peak Tram, upper terminus

 

1910s View of The Peak

 

c.1905 Buildings on the Peak

If you have any used Sternberg postcards, please could you let us know which year they were used? It might be hand-written like the 1911 example shown above, or shown as part of the postmark if the card was mailed. If you have any Sternberg postcards that show views which were definitely later than 1912, their date will be good to know too. That will help us get a more accurate range of years that the company was in business.

And if you have any Sternberg postcards you can show us, I'd love to see them. Please go ahead and upload them to Gwulo [5].

Regards, David

Also on Gwulo.com this week:

References:

  1. Moritz Sternberg
  2. 1911 Juror's List
  3. Issues of the Directory & Chronicle
  4. MetroPostCard
  5. How to upload a photo to Gwulo.com
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Business
Status
Inactive
Date organisation created
(Day, Month, & Year are approximate.)
Date organisation closed
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Comments

I have a number of Sternberg's postcards - very few of them, however, were actually sent through the postal system. Those that I have that were, and retain a legible post mark, were sent in April and September 1907 and in January 1912. I also have a couple of Sternberg's cards which were photo-printed. David will probably be able to date them. They are 'View of the City and Harbour between Hongkong and Kowloon'; and 'Praya East' Hongkong'. Oddly, even though the format and style of the cards is otherwise the same, only the former is marked on the back 'Published by M. Sternberg, Hongkong'.

Sternberg pc 1.jpg
Sternberg pc 1.jpg, by tonyclark

 

Praya East (Sternberg PC)
Sternberg pc 2.jpg, by tonyclark

 

Tony, thanks for the extra postcards. So still no sign of Sternberg in business after 1912.

Moddsey, it may well be that he was German. It isn't conclusive evidence, but I've previously written this about his address at 34 QRC:

34, Queen's Road Central is a base for several German companies. Jurors from Ullmann & Co. and Weismann, Ld. both give it as their address. [...] In 1907 I believe that 34 Queen's Rd C was the address of the old Hong Kong Club building, suggesting it was split up and rented to various busineses.

I think Sternberg was a bit of a tricky operator. He didn't confine the subject matter of his postcards to only Hong Kong and also published postcards of scenes across the border in neighbouring Kwangtung (Guangdong) province.

http://gwulo.com/sites/gwulo.com/files/thumbnails/image/CantonPC-incorrect-Large.jpg

This post card , published and printed in Hong Kong in the early 20th Century by the ubiquitous M. Sternberg of Queens Road, from time to time pops up for auction on the Ebay or Delcampe auction sites. The caption suggests that the scene is of the railway in Canton (Guangzhou) China. This is not true. Not only was the locomotive (No.17) and the type of rolling stock shown in the picture never exported to China but the surrounding trees and scenery do not match Guangzhou. About the time this postcard was published the Canton-Hankow Railway was beginning to be constructed (it eventually took over 30 years for completion) and this railway did import some American locomotives with the same wheel arrangement as the one in the picture. However there were many other differences and these engines were allocated numbers 20 to 23 inclusive.

I spent some time researching this picture with railway history enthusiasts located in USA and after some time they were able to pinpoint a locomotive which matches the one in the picture as the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad which operated through Canton , Ohio. The design matches perfectly No.17, which was supplied towards the end of the 19th Century.

So it seems that M. Sternberg was probably not too concerned about possible copyright infringements and displayed considerable flexibility with his captions when it came to selling postcards. Sternberg also produced a colour-tinted version of this card:-

https://www.cardcow.com/555378/canton-railway-transportation-trains-railroad/

 

Well you're right Annelisec. Steinberg certainly cannot be "charged" because he's been dead for what must be all of nearly 100 years.

That aside. In his time he definitely misled buyers (as Ebay dealers continue to do so) . The U.S. railway companies official names were almost invariably termed as "Railroads" and not "Railways". There is indeed still a "Canton Railroad " , a short switching line and sidings  (freight wagon marshalling yard) on the east side
of Baltimore harbour.  So by peddling this card in Hong Kong of all places and describing it as the "Canton Railway" ,  he was definitely portraying it as a scene in China.

Among my pre-WWI Hong Kong Postcard collection there are 111 by Sternberg. Sorry David, but I can´t scan them all. Besides the adresses mentioned for Sternberg I can add: 51 Queen´s R.; 51 Queen´s R and 34 Queen´s R; 68 Queen´s R; 34 and 20A Queen´s Road. - He moved a lot and sometimes had two offices. There are also postcards without an adress; the imprint reads: "Published by M. Sternberg, Hongkong".

My stamped postcards by Sternberg are 1909-1914; with the same year covering different of Sternberg´s adresses. The "34 and 20A Queen´s Road" postcard shows the sunken Canton Steamer Kwing Chow; typhoon of the 18th of September 1906. But this one has no stamp on it. And those typhoon photos were still sold years after the catastrophe.

Some of my Sternberg postcards have a "Copyright by M. Sternberg, Hongkong" imprinted on the picture. They are stamped 1909 and 1910. A copyright imprint is rare on Hongkong postcards - pls correct me if I am wrong. Copyrights on postcards, stereocards etc. depicting Hong Kong can usually be found only on us-american products. Did Sternberg move to the US? (wild guess)

Thanks for the extra information.

So far the earliest postmark we have is 1907 from Tony, and the latest is 1914 from Christoph. I'll update the "years active" to be 1907-14.

Christoph, I agree that the copyright date is unusual. I'm not sure why those cards got the copyright notice.

Regards, David

To add a little more information about Sternberg's use of 'China' scenes in his Hongkong-published postcards, this card has six small images of Chinese subjects. The larger picture (top left) again  has a picture described as the "Canton Railway" (as in my earlier post above) . This time, however, Steinberg has got it right and it does depict the temporary mat-shed serving as a locomotive depot and the location is almost certainly at Shek Wei Tong ( 石圍塘) in Canton ( Guangzhou) which was the terminus of the Canton-Samshui Railway constructed 1902-1904.

 

 

The reverse of the card indicates Sternberg was still operating wholesale and retail outlets at 51 & 34 Queen's Rd.

Delighted to see pages relating to M. Sternberg - I've been receiving Gwulo for a few months but must have started just after M. Sternberg was mentioned last summer. I've been collecting Sternberg postcards for about 20 years or so, along with other HK and China cards, but with a particular ambition to find every Sternberg postcard image ever issued (how will I know when I've got there?!) I say 'image' because he issued some views in several versions, usually with different addresses on the reverse, and I just hope to find the best/clearest image out of the several variants of black-and-white, coloured, blue tint, etc. 

So far I think I have around 400 'Sternbergs', but I add a few more each year, and have tried, unsuccesfully, to find out more about him. A friend found M. Sternberg listed as a publican or hotelier in a 1906 Hong Kong business directory; like a few others here I assume he had to cease business from 1914 onwards due to his German-sounding name. The postmarks I have on Sternbergs range from 1906 to the late 1910's, but the later dates are no real indication that he was still in business. The cards cover HK, Canton, Macao, the Philippines, Shanghai, and less so Tsingtao, Chinkiang, Foochow, Ceylon, Japan, and even a few comic naval/patriotic sentiment cards with no location.

I believe that Graca & Co., who produced postcards apparently up to 1905, before Sternberg began in 1906, settled for selling other manufacturers' postcards for years afterwards; old adverts for Graca's shop on Peddar Street can be found on the 'net, wherein Graca offers 50 postcards for $1, but these don't seem to be Graca cards, but bankrupt or remaindered postcard stocks from other HK publishers, including Sternberg, none of whom seem to have remained in postcard production for long. Graca, Ribeiro, Kruse, Sternberg, Hongkong Pictorial postcard Co., and several others appear to have operated for only short spans, and Graca, with a more varied and established business, perhaps sold off their remaindered stocks, resulting in Sternberg cards turning up with postmarks from the late 1910's.

I compiled a short article detailing what little I knew about him and the dfferent varieties of his postcards, intending the article to go in an auction catalogue the next time a Sternberg collection came up for sale in Hong Kong, as one did in a Spink auction in about 2000, and I'll see if I've still got the article since my previous computer ceased altogetgher, losing all files and documents. My (tentative) theory is that when Sternberg began producing postcards in 1906, he was the only publisher in Hong Kong (believe it or not), his predecessors, Kruse, Graca, Ribeiro, HK Pictorial PC Co., seemingly having all ceased. This would explain why only Sternberg produced postcards of the 1906 typhoon, and why his earliest cards look similar in printing and caption to Graca and Ribeiro cards, possibly in order to exploit their previous market dominance. I'm hoping I'll one day have the definitive story of the sternberg postcard issues, and your pages on the subjest are a big step forward! 

Hi everyone,

Howard here, from the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong.

We would be interested in creating a page on our site for Moritz Sternberg's postcards. (Two of them are already there, on his son's, Jacob's, memorial page.) If you would like to send us scanned images (jpg format) of the cards along with any descriptions of them you may have, we would be happy to post them. Any other information you have about Moritz (and his family) would be most welcomed too. We'll also acknowledge your contribution on the page.

Our email address is contactus@jhshk.org.

Thanks!

@sternbergman, good to hear from you.

Thanks for the info about the 1906 postmarks. I've pushed the company's creation date back to 1906 to match.

Interesting to read your comments about the other postcard publishers too. I plan to make pages for them over time, but feel free to jump in if you'd like to make a start: http://gwulo.com/node/add/organisation

Fingers crossed you can find that article,

Regards, David

I forgot to mention that the majority of postmarks I've found on Sternberg cards are around the 1909-1911 period, as though this was his heyday, but finding more in geater numbers might alter this assessment. I also fogot to include Wuchow and Peking among the locations shown on Sternberg cards, and that a great many of his cards are 'ethnographic' studies of native women, street tailors, barbers, gamblers, schoolchildren, rickshaws, sedan chairs etc., as with most HK postcard publishers.

The reference shown above from a 1912 directory, locating Sternberg in the Old Post Office Building is surprisaing,- this was never one of the several addresses he gave on the backs of his cards! But the postcards pusblished by The Turco-Egyptian Tobacco Store did give this address - they can be readily found on ebay and Delcampe, with the Old Post Office Building address shown on the back. So perhaps that's what Sternberg did next - stopped using his own name and started going by a company name, though Turco-Egyptian Tobacco cards don't look anything like Sternberg's. Incidentally, I don't think the Old Post Office was at the corner of Queen's Road and Peddar Street - isn't it the small square building at the end of Queen's Rd East in Wanchai, outside or near the Hopewell Centre?  

That was the GPO, the General Post Office up until it was demolished in 1921, wasn't it? There wasn't a time when it was called the Old Post Office, was there, as it was the GPO for its whole existence? The small building known as the Old Post Office is on Queen's Rd East, isn't it, or it used to be? 

Yes, there are numerous, possibly dozens of, Sternberg postcards that clearly use the same image as an earlier Graca postcard; similarly many of those duplicated images also appear on Ribeiro postcards and Hongkong Pictorial Postcard Co. postcards. The reason might be that all postcard publishers could use 'stock' images captured by professional photographers, and the most likely commercial photographer is Ah Fong, many of whose late 19th Century images of Canton, Hong Kong and probably Macao (can't remember offhand!) later appeared on postcards published by those four publishers.

Another reason might be that Sternberg & Co. bought out the 'intellectual property' of the three earlier firms and then used their negatives to make new Sternberg postcards. Graca & Co. and O.F. Ribeiro seem to have operated at the same time as each other, i. e. until c.1905, and the postcards of both were produced with the same red or orange-red captions in some editions, and appear to have been printed by the same printing company in Europe. Hong Kong Pictorial Co. also appears to have operated only until c.1905 but produced postcards of a different 'style' and appearance to Ribeiro and Graca, as though H.K.P.P.Co. had no relation to them, except that the same images sometimes appear on the output of all three firms. It seems likely that all three ceased production before 1906 for the simple reason that none of them issued postcards of the 1906 typhoon, an event which they surely would have recorded had they still been in business. Sternberg of course produced over 20 views of 1906 typhoon damage, and if the other three firms had already ceased by 1906, then perhaps Sternberg bought out their rights and images, hence the duplication of views between Sternberg and the three earlier firms. Just guessing...  

Very interesting thread. Thanks everyone.

I have a Queens College and a Hong Kong hotel postcards.

The former does not show their addresses. The latter show no.51 and no.34 QRC

 

Could anyone please enlighten me as to when they started adding the addresses ?

 

Thanks in advance