Embroidered Handkerchiefs

[kerry]

Dear All,

in our family box at home I unearthed a silk ( ? ) handkerchief with good quality embroidering 1914-15 and an artiullery piece, in red, blue and gold thread, and another postcard with silk (?) overlap and a card inside exhorting victory in 1916.

I assume these were churned out in their hundreds of thousands like the PM soldiers' tin. Can anyone advise as to who made them, for whom, where and why?

Many thanks

Kerry

[Fleur]

They were made by men and women of France and Flanders through out the war and on in to the 1920's.

http://www.stevengraphs.com/worwar1silpo.html

for more info

I have a fairly hefty collection of silk postcards and you are right to assume that they were indeed churned out by the dozen ........ but, certain cards depicting certain scenes are picking up in price quite considerably.

Any silk with an aircraft on it goes for big bucks, certain artillary cards too. The more unusual the design and the better condition the more they are worth.

Many of these cards did not survive well. Many were disposed of as relatives died, some stuck into albums with cow gum which destroys the backs of these cards and makes reading any message which may have been on them near impossible.

Fleur