Business, Trade & Calling Cards

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Comment by Jeff on July 13, 2011 at 7:59pm

Jack, WOW! That is too bad about losing De La Beckwith's Business card. I knew a guy that had lost one of Herman Goerings calling cards from the 1920's. He was showing it around a tavern and somebody palmed it. This guy is still crying about it!  Infamous characters seem to be more interesting than plain everyday good folks do for some reason. Go figure!  I have a Roy Frankhouser note on his famous "Adolf Hitler" stationery. Beckwith and Frankhouser were both protege's of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party.

Comment by Jack Gurner on July 11, 2011 at 1:22am

One of the reasons I started collecting business cards in 1972 was because of my work as a newspaper photographer. My "one that got away" story is from that era. I was taking pictures of a farm equipment salesman named Byron de la Beckwith. He gave me one of his cards and I lost it.

It is often surprising what celebs do after their main careers. I have a card from baseball great Jake Gibbs from a fire equipment company.

Comment by Jeff on July 10, 2011 at 6:12pm

A local celebrity, Jack Widowsky, the man behind the name on this autographed Business Card, is certainly a unique individual. At 90 years of age, he is presently working as a salesman for Consolidated Distributors of New Jersey selling Candy, Groceries, and Tobacco Products to the thousands of retail stores in the State. That said, in his younger days during WW II, he was the Navigator onboard the B29 Superfortress code-named "Top Secret" that was the back-up bomber for the Enola Gay, which dropped the first Atomic Bomb ever used in warfare on Hiroshima,Japan in 1945. Carrying it's own nuclear payload, the "Top Secret' remained on station a few miles from Hiroshima to act as the secondary bomber in case the Enola Gay was shot down or if the first bomb did not detonate. As history notes, the first bomb was successful and the flight of the "Top Secret" went into obscurity. Most of Jack's customers do not know of his past, they just know him as "The Oldest Candy Salesman in New Jersey".

Comment by Jeff on July 6, 2011 at 5:06pm

Here is a what was called a "Service Mailer". This particular card advertised the various services of a Company of Colored Men and Women in 1933 during the Great Depression. Back then, most folks found it difficult to find steady employment. It was even more difficult for "People of Color" at that time to find work, so they did just about anything to survive, as this card exemplifies.  These Mailers were an early form of mass-marketing. Though not as impersonal as a newspaper ad, they reached more potential clients through the Postal Service than through any other media at the time. The card below is another Depression-Era example of a Service Mailer.

Comment by Jack Gurner on July 4, 2011 at 11:04am

The cigar company trade card is a standard trade card overprint.  While I don't have any other versions, I am sure there are plenty. I have other examples in my collection of different companies printed on the same card design.

However, the Coins Card is a different situation. The salesman card is strictly for their company. The back design is the same as used on their game cards. It has the "money" theme and the words "coins" in it. I have three boxes of these salesman's cards - about 1000 per box!

One of the things I would like to know is which card company produced the cards for Mr. Harris and his investors. There weren't that many with the printing capability to make these cards. The decks were put into boxes of a dozen with a paper band holding them together. On the band is just one word: "Pinochle."

Comment by Gejus van Diggele on July 4, 2011 at 4:25am

Both examples show standard cards with in imprint in an 'open' space. The same card design probably has been used for numerous companies and individuals. I presume in your large collections you must have cards with different imprints. 

The same was done with post cards. A 'universal' picture was printed with names of different places. I read an article once about a Dutchman who collects post cards from the fiftees all picturing the same photograph of a girl at the beach with different names of places at the coast of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.

A few years ago I obtained two c1900 post cards of our village, one shows a large passenger ship leaving the harbour and the other shows a few cottages in the mountains with glued white sparkles on the tops. Both cards are printed with 'Greetings from Hazerswoude' but that village does not have a harbour or mountains. I'll try to find the cards and post scans, just for fun. I know this is not the right group for that subject, so I will post the cards in 'Postcards Vintage' and let you know. 

Comment by Jack Gurner on July 4, 2011 at 4:06am

This is a salesman's card touting the Coins Cards game cards that I found more than 25 years ago here in my hometown. They had been stored - along with several packs of the cards - in the upper floors of an old store building formerly occupied by W. T. Trusty, one of the original investors.

The game cards are marked in coin denominations starting with one cent and going to one dollar. Because of the way the cards were done, they could be used for the "educational" games shown in the instructions that were packed with the cards or they could be used like regular playing cards. Some of the old timers said that the inventor, John Lynn Harris, a local attorney and real estate agent who served in the Mississippi Legislature, set them up to avoid the playing card tax.

Comment by Jack Gurner on July 4, 2011 at 3:59am

I don't remember where I got this card. But, I remember that I just had to have it because of the business card reference.

Comment by Jack Gurner on July 3, 2011 at 6:10pm

I have a similar card for those two brands. I like the "business card" connection. I did considerable research and never could find much more than the company name and a few more example of the card. I will post an image of mine later.

Comment by Jeff on July 3, 2011 at 5:46pm

Hello Gejus! There was a time long ago, when smoking cigars was a sign of oppulence and prosperity, that certain companies did advertise on cigar bands, wrappers, and tubes. Some still do today in a limited fashion.This type of advertising was happily accepted by smokers of every walk in life. In the U.S. many cities are banning smoking in public places, and smoking Ads are becoming less and less charismatic. I do like your pun "Cicards", maybe you can use that one in your line of work someday!

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