#advertising cards

The pages above are from a collection of advertising cards, advertisement clippings, and instructions issued by merchants and manufacturers between approximately 1780 and approximately 1810. Most of the businesses are London-based, and some of the cards, like the ones above, include manuscript annotations critiquing quality of goods and services. The card for the seal-engraver Barnes, for example, has been described as “a Coxcomb & very dear.” The importer John Rempel has been annotated, “for the best Biscuits of all sorts.”

The 217 items have been pasted into a volume of 93 leaves. The services and goods are quite varied and include such items as stoves, hats, camping and military supplies, fruit, jewelery, and scientific instruments.

Newberry call number: VAULT Case Wing ZC 27 .T763

Today’s #TradeCardTuesday is quite the sticky situation. This advertising card was produced by the Tenexine Company of Boston, Massachusetts to promote its line of Egyptian Te-nex-ine glue. The item is undated, but was probably created between 1880 and 1913.

This card is part of Hagley Library’s Fingerman ephemera collection (Accession 2009.213), a collection of mixed-format ephemera assembled by collectors Arlene and Gerald Fingerman. Advertising cards and labels compose a large portion of this collection, but it also includes billheads, blotters, bookmarks, business cards, catalogs, checks, envelopes, flyers, letterheads, newsletters, packaging, postcards, and stamps.

The collection has not been digitized in its entirety, but you can view a curated selection of materials from it online now in our Digital Archive. Just click here!