We have thousands of old historic advertising trade cards covering just about any topic or Victorian product produced in the 1800s. These cards were the preferred advertising medium for merchants in the 1800s and trace their beginnings back to the 1700s when the early black and white advertising freebies were given away to promote businesses and products.

Initially, woodcuts and engravings were used to produce the prints but around 1800 stone lithographs began to be used as printing plates providing better quality prints and making color prints possible. Next came the steam press making large production runs possible at attractive prices, then the Christmas Card and album cards (miniature art cards without advertising) which served as the link between tradesmen’s cards and color trade cards, or chromolithographs. It was the 1876 Philadelphia Exposition which ignited the color advertising trade card into a highly desired item among the masses and showed the businessman the power of trade cards for advertising. This was the dawn of the Golden Years of trade cards which lasted until 1900 and systematically documented the products and tastes of the Victorian society.

The high water mark for trade cards was the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, which interestingly enough marked the beginning of the postcard age. But trade cards begin to fade from favor during the yellow journalism period when newspapers and magazines loosened their advertising policies and courted advertisers and the new postcard collecting rage took hold and made collecting trade cards old fashion.

Trade cards cover many of the same collectible categories that postcards do such as cats, dogs, elephants, cowboys, Indians, blacks, ethnic, comics, cupids, angels, Christmas and Santa Claus. But these Victorian advertising trade card collectibles also cover patent medicines, cosmetics, perfumes, corsets, sewing machines, sewing thread, coffee, tea, farming, bicycles, jewelry, stoves, shoe polish, clothing, hats and soaps. In addition, these advertising trade cards have some the most beautiful chromolithograph printing that you will see anywhere. So take a nostalgic trip through the Victorian age and see the advertising and images that excited your grandmother and grandfather over one hundred years ago. You will not regret the time spent.