Aerial View of Main Business Section, Charlotte, N.C.

The Curt Teich Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois, by Curt Teich (1877–1974) in 1898. Curt Teich was already working as a lithographer in Lobenstein, Germany when he emigrated to Chicago in 1895. He would start his own firm in 1898 concentrating on newspaper and magazine printing. While he was an early publisher of postcards, he did not begin printing them in number himself until 1908. As his competition dwindled his sales expanded, and his American factories would eventually turn out more postcards than any other in the United States. They they are best known for their wide range of advertising and view-cards of North America. By the 1920’s they were producing so many postcards with borders that they became recognized as a type dubbed White Border Cards. Curt Teich was an early pioneer of the offset printing process having started using offset presses in 1907. It would take a number of years before he had presses made to his satisfaction, and many more years for him to perfect the method. His innovations in this printing technique directly led to the production of what we now call Linens by the early 1930’s. While they produced many cards during World War Two, they also aided the war effort by printing many military maps. Although Curt Teich eventually turned management of the firm over to his son, he remained active in company operations throughout its history. After his death in 1974 the family business was sold to Regensteiner Publishers who continued to print cards at the Chicago plant until 1978. Afterwards the rights to the company name and processes were sold to the Irish firm John Hinde Ltd. Their California subsidiary now prints cards under the name John Hinde Curteich, Inc. After 1930 card numbers began with a number corresponding to the last digit of the year it was published in followed by a letter series denoting the decade. A series cards were printed in the 1930’s, B in the 1940’s, and C in the 1950’s. They were almost all issued with an H prefix designating a linen card under the CT Colortone name. While most of these cards have borders, some were also issued as bleeds.