ABOUT AUTHOR

Jacek Struczyk, ethnology master degree, the Municipal Museum in Żory employee. Author of dozen or so exhibitions concerning ethnology, anthropology of culture and photography; trailblazer and curator of open air “Galeria Pod Chmurką” (2005 – 2010) and co-editor of photo album Żory. Moje-Twoje-Nasze.

 

TIME OF REALIZATION

In progress.

 

PURPOSE

Programme assumes blanket scientific coverage of collection and publication of effects of work in the shape of catalogue.

 

EXPLORATORY RANGE

Publisher of Żory’s postcards
Architecture and town’s space (styles, motives, structural and urban changes)
Historical content (e.g. banners, ads, manufactures, properties, strategical objects, events, etc.)
Ethnographic content – town’s daily life; outfits, annual and ludic habits
Characteristics of content; greetings, felicitation, information, etc.

 

STATE OF EXPLORATIONS

The beginning of postcards collection reach 2001 (14th of December), when it was decided to purchase first 2 postcards from collector’s shop in Poznań. These were postcards from the beginning of XXth century (approx. 1903) depicting northern and eastern frontage of the town square, which (appeared later) are one of the oldest postcards in collection. At that time it was decided to upgrade this collection basing on offers from collector’s shops and private persons as well.

 

Due to co-operation with “Filatelia” shop in Poznań, our collection in a very fast pace extended 4 times (in 2nd of January, 2002) and in the end of the year another 11 pieces arrived.

2002 was finished with a purchase of 3 postcards from private collector from Katowice. In this manner, in almost a year after purchase of first 2 postcards, collection extended with another 20 pieces, which every one of it was unique.

 

Another years (2003 – 2006) are expansion of collection basing on established contacts with collector’s shops and private persons. Prices of postcards in that period were not that high – approx. 50 – 100 zł each.

 

2005 was game-changing if it comes to perception of museum collection and possibility of its further development. In this year, with help of Oldprint, TMMŻ and MM there was an album “Żory światłem malowane. Historia miasta na kartach pocztowych z lat 1896 – 1945” released. It was the first, synthetic publication, which consisted all so far known postcards. It contained approx. 100 postcards, which over 1/3 was from the Museum’s collection.

 

Album’s release changed our way of thinking about this collection and approach to its further creating. Until this very moment we claimed that it supposed to be finished at several dozen postcards tops, 100 max. Why is that? Żory in the beginning of XXth century was a small town with a dense, limited architecture, without any sophisticated tenements and monuments (the most recognizable was parish church, which actually found its reflection in an amount of released postcards). The only benchmark were neighbouring towns such as: Rybnik, Wodzisław Śląski or Mikołów.

 

Unfortunately, queries held in museums confirmed our assumptions: miracles shouldn’t be expected, their collections were way more poor then ours. However, comparing us to such cities as Gliwice, Bytom or Katowice is useless, because these cities possess rich urban base along with great tenements and monuments or unique public buildings (museums, theatres, libraries, stations) and industrial buildings (coal mines, smelters, manufactures). First of all – amount of potential buyers of postcards  and merchant points was much higher.

 

In the meantime, town square changed as well as manner of gathering postcards. Until then, we based on co-operation with antiquaries and narrow group of passionate collectors. Rich market of internet auctions has been opened and 2 auction sites were the most important. The first one limited itself to Poland only, while the second one gave us an opportunity to browse resources from all over the World. Releasing this album caused a significant growth of popularity among town’s inhabitants, whose couple of them became passionate collectors, what (unfortunately) caused a growth of postcards’ prices on auction sites.

 

In the end of 2015, our collection consisted of 121 postcards released until 1945 and approx. 60 made after 1945.

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