Victorian Trade Card In the Shape of a Cowboy Hat Myers Pumps & Hay Tools

Description: This Victorian Trade Card In the Shape of a Cowboy Hat is for "Myers Pumps & Hay Tools". On the inside of the card is a very colorful picture of a girl at a water pump, shooting off a boy's straw hat with the water. On the front of the card it says " Take off your Hat to "The Myers and it says the same thing on the back but on the brim of the hat. There is also stamped on the card the name of the company that sells the products Farmers Supply Co. 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. Measures 6-1/4" W x 3-1/2" H. Condition: Corners and edges are slightly worn. Check out my other trade cards.

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