Dr. Daniel and Eleanor Albert collection of cigarette and trade cards, circa 1835-1975.

Format:

Other

Author/Creator:

Albert, Daniel M.

Contributor:

Albert, Eleanor.

Dr. Daniel and Eleanor Albert Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

Chinese

Dutch

English

French

German

Italian

Subjects (All):

Cigarette cards--Specimens.

Cigarette cards.

Au Bon Marché (Paris, France).

Currier & Ives.

Popular culture--Great Britain.

Popular culture.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Social life and customs.

Manners and customs.

Genre:

Advertising cards.

Cigarette cards.

Printed ephemera.

Specimens.

Penn Provenance:

Gift of Daniel and Eleanor Albert, 2014.

Physical Description:

6 albums

Arrangement:

Organized into 2 series: I. Cigarette cards and II. Trade cards

Place of Publication:

circa 1835-1975.

Language Note:

Several of the cards in this collection are in French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Chinese. The original language has been kept in the item titles. The Chinese cigarette cards have not been transcribed.

Biography/History:

Cigarette and trade cards started as packaging stiffeners and aide-memoire slips, respectively, and evolved into widespread collectible items during the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Cigarette cards began as cardboard stiffeners for paper cigarette packages until companies began to use them for advertising and marketing purposes. Trade cards were originally used by shopkeepers as a form of receipt and then became a form of advertising, showing names, addresses, and products of different craftsmen and companies. Chromolithographic printers allowed the trade and cigarette cards to become distinctive and familiar with brightly colored pictures overstamped with a company's name. By the mid-19th century, the production of trade cards was a major industry with "big names" in all the major American cities. Cigarette cards also became a flourishing industry by the 1870s for artists, writers, and editors, as well as a medium for new and innovative printing techniques. These sets of cards pictured a wide range of topics with "cries," trades, and literary characters as popular subjects. Other cards following the cigarette card format were soon published as well. Cigarette and trade card collecting exceeds all other collecting arenas in amassing the most extensive record compilation and catalogue enumeration and they remain popular collectible items today.

Summary:

This collection contains 6 volumes of trade and cigarette cards from various companies dating from the mid 19th to 20th centuries. The cards depict many subjects and are sponsored by different publishers and companies. They are organized into four slip-cased albums and two hard cover binders. The four slip-cased albums contain both cigarette and trade cards while the two binders house only the trade cards of Liebig's Meat Company, and Currier and Ives. The cards themselves have been left in their original donated positions. Companies and organizations include Au Bon Marché, Carerras Limited, the Central Electric Authority, Cope Bros. & Co., Currier and Ives, Godfrey Phillips Ltd., Guerin-Boutron, H. Mandelbaum, Imperial Tobacco Co., John Player & Sons, Lambert & Butler, Liebig's Company, Major Drapkin & Co., Ogdens, Rich's, Sniders and Abrahams, the Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society, Turf, W. & F. Faulkner, and West Riding County Council. Themes of the cards include, but are not limited to, art; literature (particularly Charles Dickens and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle); cries, types, and characters of London; history of London; optical illusions; pirates and highwaymen; Jewish life in many lands; and healthy living.

Notes:

Materials Separated from the Resource: University of Pennsylvania: Dr. Daniel and Eleanor Albert Collection which includes books and broadsides.

OCLC:

898216722