Stevengraph Postcards - sc360 - Honour and Liberty

The embossing around the silk panel is not typical of Stevens, and is more usually found on the ALPHA Postcards.
Apart from the printed names of the respective publishers, the Stevens card above is identical to the one produced by The ALPHA Publishing Company (recorded as sa1090).
It is generally assumed that when Stevens sold his silks to ALPHA, he also mounted them in an official Stevens embossed card. This is the only card known with the Stevens name and ALPHA embossing, suggesting that on this one occation, it was the ALPHA Publishing Company which mounted the silk and sold the completed card to Stevens. If this assumption is correct, then by implication, it is quite possible Stevens did not weave this silk panel.

Sprake records this Stevens postcard (but not the ALPHA equivalent), and attributes the flags as Holland / Great Britain / France and Belgium. In doing so, he describes the first flag as being that of Holland, and asserting that whilst Stevens had woven the colours as White, Blue and Red, Stevens had made a mistake, and they should have been Red, Blue and White.

Historically though, the initial allies in the First World War were Russia, Great Britain, France and Belgium. The first flag on the silk above is actually that of Russia, as used until the Soviet Union was established in 1917, and the colours are woven in the correct order.

Reference Number:-	Godden Number:-	Sprake Number:-
sc 360	194	spc71

Words:	Printed at top of card:- HONOUR AND LIBERTY woven in silk:- {there are no words woven in the silk} being instead the flags of: RUSSIA, GREAT BRITAIN, FRANCE and BELGIUM Printed at bottom of card:- WOVEN IN SILK BY THOMAS STEVENS (COVENTRY) LTD.
Size:	card: 13.5cm long by 9.0cm deep silk: 9.5cm long by 3.5cm deep
Comments:	The embossing around the silk panel is not typical of Stevens, and is more usually found on the ALPHA Postcards. Apart from the printed names of the respective publishers, the Stevens card above is identical to the one produced by The ALPHA Publishing Company (recorded as sa1090). It is generally assumed that when Stevens sold his silks to ALPHA, he also mounted them in an official Stevens embossed card. This is the only card known with the Stevens name and ALPHA embossing, suggesting that on this one occation, it was the ALPHA Publishing Company which mounted the silk and sold the completed card to Stevens. If this assumption is correct, then by implication, it is quite possible Stevens did not weave this silk panel. Sprake records this Stevens postcard (but not the ALPHA equivalent), and attributes the flags as Holland / Great Britain / France and Belgium. In doing so, he describes the first flag as being that of Holland, and asserting that whilst Stevens had woven the colours as White, Blue and Red, Stevens had made a mistake, and they should have been Red, Blue and White. Historically though, the initial allies in the First World War were Russia, Great Britain, France and Belgium. The first flag on the silk above is actually that of Russia, as used until the Soviet Union was established in 1917, and the colours are woven in the correct order.

HONOUR AND LIBERTY