MAIN QUESTIONS

What follows are some cards from the collection of the author. No claim is made here as to the comprehensiveness of the collection, from which representative or interesting examples have been selected for presentation here. With the exceptions of numbers 12 and 22, the backs have not been reproduced. In order to explore themes and not simply present a range of images, they have been roughly divided into three groups: Early Fencing, Sport Fencing, and something of a subgroup of the latter, Women’s fencing. Helene Mayer is given a separate heading, and her story is considered in the context of the Olympic games of 1936. Special attention will be paid to the following questions:

1. What kind of fencing images were popular (and perhaps why)?
2. Are men and women pictured in the same way or differently?
3. What do the captions on the cards say about fencing during this period?
4. Is there any association between the products the cards advertised (if any) and the selected images?
5. Finally, is there any political slant that can be determined from either the images or captions on the cards?

The back of the cards is usually not instructive, simply bearing a puff about the series of cards as a whole with little information about the image. Where relevant, text will be translated and discussed.