Postcard Eisenbach Luxembourg, village view in the Oesling, Fr. Bettel ca. 1900

Luxembourgian postcard from the period around 1900 showing a tinted phototype of a general view of the hamlet of Eisenbach in the Oesling. The image shows the scattered farmhouses of the village among rolling hills, with in the foreground a path and a small stone bridge over the eponymous stream, the Eisenbach. At the top left, the place name "Eisenbach" in red lettering, and at the bottom the publisher's mark "Verlag von Fr. Bettel, Handelsmann, Eisenbach". The verso bears the indication "Union Postale Universelle - Weltpostverein" and "Grand-Duché de Luxembourg - Grossherzogtum Luxemburg", with an undivided back without a separation line between correspondence and address. The verso is blank and unposted. The card is in good condition.

The undivided back places this card before 1905, the year Luxembourg adopted the divided back approved by the Universal Postal Union, making it part of the first generation of Luxembourgian postcards. Eisenbach is a hamlet in the present-day municipality of Lac-de-la-Haute-Sûre, formerly part of Heiderscheid, situated in the north-western Oesling. Fr. Bettel, Handelsmann of Eisenbach, was likely the village shopkeeper who had a small print run of postcards of his community made at his own expense, a common practice in the small Luxembourgian villages where a local shopkeeper-publisher was the only one taking the initiative to bring his village to the international picture postcard market. Such editions were often printed in very small numbers and remained tied to the publisher's own points of sale.