Description: This Beautiful Large Die Cut Victorian Trade Card is Compliments of J. Gauthier One Price Clothier, Webster, MA. Made of thick cardstock and die cut is embossed and glossy. Brief History of Trade Cards by Ben Crane. Over a century ago, during the Victorian era, one of the favorite pastimes was collecting small, illustrated advertising cards that we now call trade cards.
These trade cards evolved from cards of the late 1700s used by tradesmen to advertise their services. Although examples from the early 1800s exist, it was not until the spread of color lithography in the 1870s that trade cards became plentiful. By the 1880s, trade cards had become a major way of advertising America's products and services, and a trip to the store usually brought back some of these attractive, brightly-colored cards to be pasted into a scrapbook. Some of the products most heavily advertised by trade cards were in the categories of: medicine, food, tobacco, clothing, household, sewing, stoves, and farm.
The popularity of trade cards peaked around 1890, and then almost completely faded by the early 1900s when other forms of advertising in color, such as magazines, became more cost effective. Although trade card collecting began over 100 years ago, today's strong interest in trade cards began relatively recently. Business cards, ribbons, literary excerpts, and eventually. Were all preserved on the pages of these memory books.
In response to the scrap booking trend, 19th-century bookmakers designed blank albums with elaborate, tooled-leather covers, gilt paper edgings, and engraved clasps. The earliest materials explicitly produced as die-cut "scrap" for decorating homemade albums were black-and-white, hand-colored etchings. As lithography processes improved, bright colors, textured embossing, and glossy finishes were employed to enhance the printed imagery. Had become the leaders in such scrap production. Successful companies like Currier & Ives and Raphael Tuck & Sons created beautiful scrap pieces alongside smaller brands like Allen & Ginter and Littauer & Boysen.But the German die cuts are considered the best because of the details of their tooling process. Measures 8" W x 11-1/2" H.
Condition: Corners and edges are slightly worn. There is a small hole at the top and a small tear on the right edge. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Advertising\Merchandise & Memorabilia\Victorian Trade Cards\Other Victorian Trade Cards". The seller is "bungalowblondie2" and is located in this country: US.
This item can be shipped worldwide.