Trade cards and labels collection

Collection — Box: 1

Identifier: Col-9

Digitized Version

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Scope and Contents

This artificial and still open collection contains thousands of trade cards and labels that advertise a variety of products, including house furnishings, toys and games, jewelry, horse equipage, gas appliances, foodstuffs, hardware, sewing products, paints, medicines, personal goods, etc. Service oriented businesses, such as commission merchants and insurance companies, also advertised through the collection's cards and labels. There are also stock cards (that is, cards kept in stock by printers) that were used by advertisers of different products; often these cards feature designs which have little or nothing to do with the product or business being promoted. Many of the cards are in color and feature ornate designs. Most of the cards and labels are from the eastern United States, while some originated in Europe.

Dates

Creation: between approximately 1734 and approximately 1932

Conditions Governing Access

This collection is open for research.

Full Extent

4 Cubic Feet (12 boxes)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Universal 1.0 Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Received as purchases and gifts from multiple sources over many years.

Digitized Version

Digitized images of the trade cards are available on Winterthur Library's Digital Collections site.

Related Materials

See also Col. 669, the Thelma Mendsen collection, for more trade cards, also filed by subject.

Related Materials

Additional trade cards are in Col. 838, John and Carolyn Grossman collection. These are filed by image on the cards, not by the subject of what was being advertised.

General

Users should consult staff to learn of other discrete collections of trade cards and labels at this repository.

Index

A listing of firms, addresses, products advertised, dates, printers, subject headings and descriptions is available on Access software at this repository. Trade cards are filed by subject. The Col. 9 finding aid does include trade cards found elsewhere in the Downs Collection.