Sailboats crowd the quayside as the grand neo-Renaissance tower of Leer's Rathaus soars above the Uferplatz waterfront — a scene alive with commerce and civic pride in the final years of the nineteenth century. This striking undivided-back "Gruss aus" card captures the East Frisian harbor town of Leer at its mercantile peak, the Leda river busy with flat-bottomed traders typical of the region. Published by local bookseller J. Bartels and printed by the renowned Frankfurt chromolithographer Fritz Mühlstein (No. 1208), it represents the earliest wave of German picture-postcard production. The card was postmarked in Leer on 3 September 1898 and travelled to Cologne (Köln), addressed to a "Fräulein Franz. Schmitz" at Breitestr. 87 — a young woman whose sender, signing a bold flourishing hand, sends greetings "herzlichst" with warm regards.