Antique & Vintage Postcards

Clinging vertiginously to the rock face of the Schlossberg, Graz's beloved castle hill, two funicular cars creep toward the summit restaurant in this dramatic real-photo card taken as if from the descending car itself — the rack-and-pinion track plunging steeply away into the city below. The Schlossbergbahn, opened in 1894, was a beloved institution of Styrian daily life, and this card was produced by L. Strohschneider of Graz in 1927 on bromide-silver paper (Bromsilberkarte) as promotional material for the Schloßbergrestaurant Fischer at the summit. The back bears the restaurant's violet-ink rubber stamp advertisement — an evocative piece of ephemera from interwar Styria, unused and in very good condition.