Trade Cards

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About Victorian Trade Cards

Victorian trade cards are an early form of collectible advertising. Popularized after the Civil War by businesses, they offer a colorful and diverse look at popular culture and society in the late 1800s.

Trade cards originated in England in the 1700s with tradesmen advertising their wares. But the advent of lithography in the 1870s made it possible to mass-produce them in color, leading to a golden age from 1876 to the early 1900s when halftone printed newspaper and magazine ads became more economical.

Trade cards typically had a picture on one side and an ad on the other. There were custom cards printed for specific products, and stock cards which could be used for any product. Trade cards were popular for medicines, sewing, and farm equipment, and a range of other products. Some rare Victorian trade cards are now worth thousands of dollars, for example cards advertising Clipper Ships traveling from the East Coast to California in the 1860s.

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Articles

An Interview With Victorian Trade Card Collector Ben Crane

An Interview With Victorian Trade Card Collector Ben Crane

How did I start collecting Victorian trade cards? In the late 60s I was a bottle collector, early American bo…  [more]

An Interview With Victorian Furniture Collector John Werry

An Interview With Victorian Furniture Collector John Werry

How did I get started collecting Victorian Furniture? Antiques is in my genes, my mother's family were longti…  [more]

An Interview With Antique Advertising and Porcelain Enamel Sign Collector Alex Renshaw

An Interview With Antique Advertising and Porcelain Enamel Sign Collector Alex Renshaw

How did I get started collecting advertising antiques? My dad was a lecturer and tutor in graphics and art fr…  [more]

An Interview With Comic Character Advertising Pinback Collector Mark Lansdown

An Interview With Comic Character Advertising Pinback Collector Mark Lansdown

I started off collecting comics, and still do, but I’d been given a few early Disney pinbacks as a child an…  [more]

An Interview With Baseball Card Collector Dave Campbell

An Interview With Baseball Card Collector Dave Campbell

Dave Campbell contacted me after reading a post on The Baseball Card blog. He's been collecting baseball card…  [more]

An Interview With Victorian Greeting Card Collector Malcolm Warrington

An Interview With Victorian Greeting Card Collector Malcolm Warrington

Malcolm Warrington is based 12 miles to the west of Central London. He is a council member of the UK Ephemera…  [more]

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Top Websites (“Hall of Fame”)

Trade Card Place

Trade Card Place

Ben Crane's excellent reference site on Victorian trade cards. Includes a scrapbook containing hundreds of beautifu…  [more]

Rare Victorian

Rare Victorian

John Werry's in-depth blog on rare Victorian Furniture, with detailed, informative and often humorous posts on doze…  [more]

Advertising Antiques

Advertising Antiques

This classy looking British site features hundreds of high resolution photos of antique porcelain pre-war (enamel) …  [more]

Ephemera Society of America

Ephemera Society of America

Great reference on ephemera... includes examples and descriptions of various ephemera categories, selected special …  [more]

Ephemera Blog

Ephemera Blog

Marty Weil's wide-ranging, in-depth blog on ephemera, including lots of great interviews with ephemera collectors. …  [more]

The Scrap Album

The Scrap Album

Attention paper collectors: don't miss Malcolm Warrington's exquisitely designed tribute to Victorian scraps (stamp…  [more]

Ad Access

Ad Access

Duke University's library has pulled together an impressive collection of over 7,000 ads printed in U.S. and Canadi…  [more]

Plan 59

Plan 59

From the Nostlagia Factory in Virginia comes this celebration of 'mid-century automotive advertising illustrations'…  [more]

American Package Museum

American Package Museum

Ian House's gallery of early 20th Century American package designs. Browse the exhibits in slide show mode or view …  [more]

Stevengraphs Bookmarks and Postcards

Stevengraphs Bookmarks and Postcards

Malcolm Roebuck's tribute to the ornate silk picture bookmarks and postcards ('Stevengraphs') produced by Thomas St…  [more]

Found in Moms Basement

Found in Moms Basement

Paula Zargaj-Reynolds’ blog, an extensive collection of 20th century vintage advertising, is a visual feast. Scro…  [more]

Truth in Advertising

Truth in Advertising

This gallery of cigarette magazine advertising from the 1940s and 50s contains no surgeon general's warning, just p…  [more]


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