ART & ARTISTS: Trade Cards

Friday, 2 October 2015

Trade Cards - part 1

Trade cards first became popular at the end of the 17th century in Paris, Lyon, and London. They functioned as advertising and also as maps, directing the public to merchant's stores, as no formal street address numbering system existed at the time.

One of the oldest trade cards, printed in Lyon and designed by Thomas Blanchet in 1674 for the firm of Anthony Warrior:

A trade card from around 1730-1742 for a furnishing store, from the V & A Museum collection in London:

An early 19th century English language trade card for John Farina, cologne manufacturer, showing Farina Huas, Cologne:

Victorian trade cards became an early form of collectible advertising, particularly in the United States. Popularised after the Civil war by businesses, they offer a colourful and diverse look at popular culture and society in the late 1800s.

The advent of lithography in the 1870s made it possible to mass-produce them in colour, leading to a golden age from 1876 to the early 1900s, when halftone printed newspaper and magazine advertisements became more economical.

Trade cards typically had a picture on one side and an advertisement on the other:

Colburn's Philadelphia Mustard ( die-cut ) front

Colburn's Philadelphia Mustard ( die-cut ) back

There were custom cards printed for specific products, and generic stock cards that could be used for any product:

Charles A. Adams, Winchendon, MA

Jones and Davis, Central Falls, RI

Trade cards were popular for medicines (including a number of quack remedies), sewing products, farming equipment and a range of other products. Some rare Victorian trade cards are now worth thousands of dollars, for example cards advertising Clipper Ships travelling from the East Coast to California in the 1860s. Many can be picked up for a few dollars on online auction sites.

This is part 1 of a 6-part series on Trade Cards: