A variety of products are advertised in the collection. All trade cards in the collection are American except two French cards which can be found in the "Miscellaneous Products" folder.

Trade cards, also known as advertising cards, were wildly popular collectibles in the latter half of the nineteenth century as consumer culture took over America. Advertising a huge variety of manufactured goods in bright chromolithographed colors, trade cards were produced by advertisers to encourage recognition of brand names and to stimulate demand for the products advertised. Though trade cards sometimes feature rather generic Victorian images of flowers or birds, these attractive pieces of ephemera often feature comic little vignettes with punchy slogans, or instructions for catchy games to be played using the card. Some are die-cut, and some have folding or moveable pieces--features that surely made great fun for their collectors. Trade cards were often issued in series to emphasize their collectible aspect, and this collection has many representatives from various series; for example, McLaughlin's Coffee "War Ship" series, or Arbuckle's "States" series.

0.67 Linear Feet

These materials are in the public domain. However, the nature of historical archival and manuscript collections means that copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Copyright resides with the creators of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. Requests for permission to publish must be submitted to the Head of Special Collections, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access. When granted, permission is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder(s), which must also be obtained in order to publish. Materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials.

This collection is open for research.