After a one-year break, the German Harmonica and Accordion Museum is back with an attractive picture calendar. It has been available since mid-September and bears the title “Hohner advertising in postcard format from the early 20th century to the 1950s”.
A total of 16 attractive image motifs document the clever marketing of the Hohner advertising strategists: In addition to the cover sheet, there are twelve monthly sheets with enlarged multicolored postcard motifs in different styles and an appendix consisting of three extra sheets.
Renowned commercial graphic artists and other artists worked for Hohner AG. Two promotional images are based on oil paintings. One of them - “The Village Prince”, calendar motif for August 2021 - does not represent any harmonic advertising at all, although many viewers should be familiar with it. The appendix brings the resolution. Here the blond boy with the cheeky Tyrolean hat is shown again. But he no longer chews on a stalk of grain, instead he holds a harmonica in his left hand. The Hohner management had commissioned the Dresden painter Richard Hesse with a second version of his village prince painting.
In general, the three sheets of the appendix represent a great added value. There is all sorts of background information on the title motif and the twelve monthly sheets beyond the date of creation, e.g. about the people who were the models for the three postcards with photos and photo collages.
The 2021 picture calendar represents a delightful mix of six decades of Hohner advertising on postcards. It reflects how graphic design and taste changed, but the advertising goal always remained the same. Sometimes the advertising slogans of yore are also reproduced. In the mid-1930s, a photo postcard said something like „(…) Freude bringt, ob früh, ob spat – Dir ein ‘Hohner‘-Fabrikat“ [“(...) brings joy, whether early or late - a‘ Hohner‘ product for you”].
In the early 20th century, some advertising material was said to be “an ornament to every shop window”. According to this slogan, it can be said: The 2021 picture calendar of the Harmonikamuseum is an ornament of every room and an excellent gift idea!
Info: The picture calendar 2021 "Advertising Postcards" has 16 sheets and appears in DIN A4 format. It is available - while stocks last - at a low price of € 9.80 in the shop or by mail order from Deutsche Harmonikamuseum, Hohnerstr. 4/1 , 78647 Trossingen, Germany (for shipping plus € 2.00 in Germany; international shipping € 4.00).