Postcards - Rose Collection - Frankston

Rose Stereograph Company

The Rose Stereograph Company was established by George Rose in 1880. 

The company’s earliest product was the stereographic photograph, which contained two slightly offset images of the same scene. When viewed through a stereoscopic viewer, these images created the illusion of three-dimensional depth. While highly popular in the late nineteenth century, stereographs declined in use from the early twentieth century with the rise of silent cinema and picture postcards.

From 1912 until his retirement in 1930, George Rose produced printed postcards, predominantly of Victorian landscapes. These postcards were created from photographs captured on glass plate negatives. In 1931, Rose sold the business to employees Edward Gilbert and Herbert Cutts. In approximately 1940, Gilbert sold his share to Cutts, who continued to manage the company until his death in 1962. Ownership then passed to his son, Neil Cutts, and the company remained family-operated until it entered liquidation in 2017.

The Rose Stereograph Company's most significant postcard series is the P Series, produced between 1913 and 1967 and numbered from P.1 to P.14970.   In 1967, production shifted to machine-manufactured colour postcards which were printed externally.

This collection comprises the P Series postcards from the Frankston area, including Seaford and Mount Eliza.