
Front of the postcard from September 14, 1911, by Der Kinematograph to Optische Glasfabrik Avril.
On September 14, 1911 a postcard was sent from Düsseldorf to Zabern. It arrived a day later. The postcard was sent by the publisher of Der Kinematograph, one of the well-established trade journals in Germany. Addressed to V. Avril Optische Glasfabrik it served as vehicle for the payment service (cash on delivery). It was send because the company, or perhaps Avril himself, had chosen to place an advertisement in Der Kinematograph to promote their products.

Back of the postcard from September 14, 1911, by Der Kinematograph to Optische Glasfabrik Avril.
The advertisement in question can be identified since the postcard states the issue in which it was published. This particular advertisement was part of the issue 244 from August 30, 1911. The price was mentioned as 10.00 Marks with an additional 30 Pfennig for the payment service. For comparison, a single line of text for a standard advertisement was priced at 20 Pfennig.1

Ad by Optische Glasfabrik Avril in Der Kinematograph.2
Thoughts
This postcard provides some insights about into daily business of the film trade. It offers a glimpse of how transactions between companies, in this case between a publisher and his client, were conducted in detail. It takes us back to a time when transferring money was a different matter than it is today, and cash on delivery was still a valid and practical way to settle a bill.
copyright
The images used are partially from reproductions made by myself, the original creators of the envelopes are unknown.
The image of the advertisement used in this article is taken from:
sources
The film trade journal is available at Internet Archive (Der Kinematograph).
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