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Friday, October 16, 2015

Vintage French Snow White Postcards by Tobler

The Swiss chocolatier, Tobler, introduced their popular postcard promotion, circa 1951. Disney-themed cards were offered as premiums inside bars and boxes of chocolate. They were printed by Georges Lang of Paris and issued in France. Each measures approximately 9 x 14cm (3.5" x 5.5"). There were loads of them--characters from the early shorts and every animated feature up through Peter Pan.

When I first started researching these postcards, it was a surprise to find that Snow White and the dwarfs were represented with two different sets of illustrations, possibly one of them having been released at a later date. One group of eight cards was issued with green ink printed on the reverse side. The other batch--with different images--was produced with red ink. However, after years of searching, I have yet to come across any evidence to show that Sneezy, Sleepy, and Bashful were ever included in this latter group. Some of the red-back cards promote the children's magazine Le Journal de Mickey.

The Snow White postcards that I know to exist are shown below. The green-back series is on the left, red-backs to the right.


Blanche Neige.




An example of the green ink on the reverse side. The text mentions that a free card album is available.




The red ink back.




An alternate red-back promotes Le Journal de Mickey.




Prof.




Grincheux.




Joeyeux.




Simplet.




Atchoum, Dormeur, Timide (green-backs only).



It seems logical to think that these last three characters would have been included in the red-back set too, but I've yet to find any mention of them online.

4 comments:

  1. It's funny how each decade when the characters are redrawn they take on the characteristics of the era in which they were produced! Thank you for your excellent Snow White blog Robert it's superb and I look forward to each post!

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    1. Thank you Wobble. Your kind comments are appreciated and are the sort of thing that help keep this thing going.

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  2. Thanks Robert, i own many of the tobler cards and albums, all are great!

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    1. I really like the artwork on these. Quite distinctive.

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