Stengel & Co. (1885–1945), Dresden, Germany. This firm, first called Stengel & Markert, was founded by Emil Stengel and Heinrich Markert. In around 1889 the firm assumed the name Stengel & Co., at about which time it began producing postcards. An office was opened in Berlin in 1899 and another factory for collotype and halftone printing followed two years later. The company also opened a London office in 1901. Now working as printer, publisher, and distributor, it became the largest producer of postcards in the world. Having expanded into chromolithography, it became a major publisher and printer of fine art cards.Its postcards are possibly the finest quality postcards ever produced. Stengel’s cards were first distributed by O. Flammger, then Misch & Company in Great Britain and by the Rotograph Company in the United States. While Stengel is best known for it stars cards, it also published a great number of worldwide view cards. The earliest were produced as black and white collotypes, which began to be hand colored in around 1895. The firm became a Public Limited Company in 1906, shortly after the death of Emil Stengel. In around 1909 Joseph Keller became the manager of Stengel & Co. and the Keller family was now a majority shareholder. By 1913 the firm was increasingly expanding into commercial printing, which may in part been due to tariffs placed on German cards. Following World War One its cards were produced through offset lithography and as bromide real photos