Antique & Vintage Postcards

A grand farmhouse-style building nestles at the edge of a broad meadow valley, alpine peaks — including what appears to be the distinctive double summit of the Höllengebirge — filling the sky above in this beautifully composed 1930 real-photo postcard of the Gebirgsbauernschule (Mountain Farmers' School) in the Jainzental near Bad Ischl. The Gebirgsbauernschule was an agricultural training institution established to support the mountain farming communities of the Salzkammergut, an institution that speaks to the economic realities of interwar rural Austria as much as to its scenic beauty. A pencil note on the back reads "Partie am 9/8.30" — a terse personal notation, likely recording a visit or excursion on 9 August 1930, the same year as the card's printing. Erich Bährendt's Photo Verlag again produced this card, numbered 134 in his catalogue, with the "Echte Photographie" quality stamp attesting to the silver-gelatin RPPC process.