By Jason J. Marchi
Times Correspondent
Long before the advent of radio, television, and telephone directory advertising, a small, illustrated advertising card was used by tradesmen to advertise their wares.
The cards, known today as trade cards, were slightly larger than a standard business card but smaller than a postcard, and they became the rage during the Victorian era once color lithography was introduced to printed ephemera.
Jim Diaz-Saavedra, a New London resident who grew up in Waterford, has been collecting vintage trade cards for the past 17 years, and his collection—which numbers more than 100 trade cards—focuses on businesses that once operated in New London.
“It’s a fun hobby,” he says, which began after years of collecting postcards.
When Diaz-Saavedra attended various postcard and paper shows that operate each year throughout New England, he realized the dealers had trade cards mixed in with postcards. That’s when he spotted the antique New London trade cards.
“I thought, ‘Those are nice,’ so I bought a few of those and I’ve been collecting ever since,” he says.
Unlike the standard, plain business card of today with basic text and no or little artwork, “Antique trade cards have beautiful graphics on them before the era of when telephones came along. When you went into a shop, they’d give you a trade card which told you what the business was and what they had to offer,” Diaz-Saavedra explains.
The heyday of trade cards began with the opening of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, according to historians, when color lithography became readily available. The popularity of the cards soared through the 1880s and into the 1890s before waning at the beginning of the 20th century, when advertising shifted to color advertising in magazines.
The fine resolution of the graphics when printed on quality card stock yielded a striking image that captured people’s imaginations, and these colorful trade cards were used to advertise countless American products, from soup and soap to pianos and even steamships and clipper ships. The most heavily advertised household product categories included food, clothing, sewing supplies, medicine, and stoves, as well as paint, tobacco, and farm products.
Although trade card collecting was the fashion more than 100 years ago, interest was lost in the early to mid-20th century, and only recently has collecting begun again in earnest. According to trade card historian Ben Crane, trade cards that were bought for 10 cents 30 years ago frequently bring $10 or more in today’s market, and some, the most prized, have sold for more than $1,000.
One of the collector shows Diaz-Saavedra frequents each year operates in Brimfield, Mass., which he says is a “huge antique show that runs a week at a time in May, July, and September—just a massive flea market for antiques dealers. They have paper dealers at the show that deal just in paper products, like postcards, posters, advertisements for movies, all sorts of stuff. People come from all over the world to this show. Another show coming up late this year is Paper Mania at the Hartford Civic Center.”
He also picks up trade cards on occasion at yard sales, flea markets, and antique shops.
“I put them in dust sleeves to keep them clean, and they’re very compact,” he notes.
While trade card collecting might seem like a solitary hobby, Diaz-Saavedra says he has become friends with other trade card collectors, many of them over the Internet, and he searches on e-Bay for others interested in the hobby.
One of his friends on Fishers Island, N.Y.,—where Diaz-Saavedra works as a carpenter—is also involved in the hobby.
“I was collecting before him, then his grandfather gave him a bunch of black-and-white cards and then he got into postcards, so now he’s become my direct competition, but we still communicate and try not to bid on the same cards.”
The age of the New London trade cards can be dated by information on the card, according to Diaz-Saavedra. Cards that were printed before the advent of the telephone are without a phone number. Later cards, issued after the telephone’s popularity spread, will display four-digit local exchange, “and as the years go on more digits appear in the phone number. You can use that to tell the later years of trade cards,” he explains, adding, “There’s a lot of history just looking at what’s on the business trade cards.”
Diaz-Saavedra warns, however, that some of the history can be misinterpreted. For example, the numbering system of the buildings along State Street and Bank Street in downtown New London has changed over the years, so the location of old businesses would not match up with the current numbering system of the streets.
“The city historian, Sally Ryan, would know when the street numbers changed,” for anyone who really wants to know, Diaz-Saavedra notes.
And one bit of history that is missing among trade cards in general is any knowledge of the artists involved, since none of them are signed.
Diaz-Saavedra’s most recent find was via e-Bay; a trade card advertising Brainerd & Armstrong Silk Works of New London with the caption, “A Moonlight Frolic.” The graphics depict a group of silk spools dancing in the moonlight playing drums, a violin, a flute, a tambourine, and one spool is doing a handstand.
While the businesses in New London have changed over the years, the history of many of these once thriving establishments can still be glimpsed in the color, typography, and design of these vintage trade cards.