This is a collection of trade cards from various business in Sacramento from 1870 to 1910, collected and organized by Gerald T. Kirrene.

Trade cards (also called tradesmen's cards) are small printed cards handed out to promote a company or product. Trade cards first appeared in Europe in the seventeenth-century to get around bans on overhead signs, with the oldest surviving examples from the 1630s. Trade cards became popular in the 1830s with the invention of color lithography. The process uses specially-prepared printing plates to print each color layer-by-layer. This process produces bright color images on the card for little cost. Early cards were simple in design, but by the 1850s trade cards had vibrant and complex images to catch the eye of would-be customers.

1 Box; 1.06 Linear Feet

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