Postcard News - John Hinde Extend Postcard Coverage as J. Arthur Dixon Folds
Increasing competition has forced the famous Isle of Wight postcard publishing firm J. Arthur Dixon into receivership and encouraged Dennis Print of Scarborough to sell their postcard and calendar distribution arm to John Hide, the Irish firm which is now based in Cornwall. The closure at Dixon's, owned since 1998 by the London firm Second Nature, was a huge shock to unions and employees when it came in January, but John Hinde had already negotiated - in 1998 the rights to the Dixon postcard brand.
The Cornwall firm went for Dennis's because they wanted to strengthen their distribution power in the north of England. The deal between the two postcard giants means that Dennis postcards and calendars will continue as a brand name, but will be sold, published and distributed by John Hinde, who will now have a dozen reps covering the whole of the UK. Dennis will concentrate on their printing business, but retain the Bamforth name, though it must now be highly questionable whether any new Bamforth designs will appear. In a further complication, publication of existing Bamforth stock will be handled by Salmon of Sevenoaks in the south of England and by John Hinde in the remainder of the country.
These changes mark the end of the last link with the original Golden Age of picture postcards in Britain. Dennis was the first firm to publish these in September 1894 and, until the Hinde deal, could boast 106 years of continuous postcard publication. In that time, they have published a huge variety of subject cards, though latterly concentrated on views. One of their cards is shown on the cover of this issue.
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J. Arthur Dixon (card shown left) began publishing postcards in the 1930s and probably peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, when their distinctive colour photographic views led the market. There particular cards are already quite collectable and are likely to increase in popularity. |
For John Hinde, the changes represent an opportunity to consolidate their position as the country's leading supplier of picture postcard views. Currently their range encompasses some 11,500 designs. Their ambitions are unlikely to end here, though. They have already established a huge presence in the North American postcard market with a takeover of Mailwell in the States. In an increasingly competitive and recently shrinking market for viewcards, rationalisation of this kind was probably inevitable. For the immediate future, they are likely to continue publishing cards with the Dennis and Dixon name.
(Article submitted by Martin Thompson and reproduced by kind permission of Picture Postcard Monthly.)