Promoting products took form of paper years ago

By Terry Maurer, What's it Worth

Long before radio, TV and the Internet dominated advertising, merchants and manufacturers employed some specialized printed pieces to get their message out.

Today's What's It Worth explores the late 19th century phenomenon of "trade cards," as well as looking into a decal expressing civic pride in the Tri-Cities.

Q. We have an album filled with these cards advertising various products. Some are for canned milk, others for brands of beer and some promote health care products. They're all about postcard-size and have advertising on the back. We think the cards were collected by our great-grandfather but know nothing more about them. What can you tell us? -- Claire in Kennewick

A. Trade cards -- less well-known and not as collected as postcards -- got their start when steam began replacing sail to power ships. Before the American Civil War, owners of sailing vessels sought to retain their market share by distributing printed cards to shipping agents and passengers. The cards touted the safety, reliability and speed of their ships. Most pictured the company's clipper ship or other sailing vessel.

From that beginning, it was only a few decades and a short hop for national and regional manufacturers to start using colorful cards to promote their products.

The pasteboard cards, which vary in size but are generally about 3-by-5 inches, were collected almost from the start. Some firms produced cards in a series especially designed to be collectible. Arbuckle's Coffee had a "Nations of the World" series and a competitor, Lion's Coffee, did a series of Brownie cards. Each card showed a Brownie riding a different animal.

Their heyday was from 1865 to about 1900. The cards first came into widespread use when a great number of then-new consumer products were beginning to hit the market. At the same time, cost-effective color printing had been perfected.

Trade cards were so widespread it's said a collector visiting the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 could have picked up nearly 50,000 cards for products of different kinds. They were colorful, sometimes humorous and came at the right price -- free.

Today, collectors look for the earliest cards, unusual forms such as "mechanical cards" with moving parts (like a cart wheel that revolves) or cards picturing -- but not necessarily promoting -- subjects like fire engines, railroad trains or farm machinery. Some very rare cards can be worth several hundred dollars.

We don't see these cards nearly as often as postcards, but when they do appear at a shop or show, there often are many available all at once. That's because of their very early "collectible" status and the fact people could build collections of hundreds or thousands of cards and store them in just a few shoe boxes.

Condition, rarity and subject all drive the price. The cards in this collection would mostly be considered as "common" subjects and the condition seems to range from fair to excellent. Most would bring $5 to $15. They need to be valued individually and if there are scarce or rare examples, they'll be worth a lot more.

Q. I really don't recall the circumstances of how I came to have this 3-inch-square Richland decal. Someone gave it to me and I've never known much about it, except it's dated 1947 and the artist is the fellow who did the Dupus Boomer cartoon character in the old Villager newspaper. Might it have any collector interest? -- Art in Kennewick

A. There's some interesting history to this item, but it is far from complete.

Dick Donnell was the man who invented the Dupus Boomer cartoon character. Dupus went through all the trials and tribulations of living here and working at Hanford during the early days.

During World War II, hardly anyone at Hanford knew what they were working on. The end of the war brought it all out -- reactors, plutonium, the bomb. And the little Village of Richland was quick to capitalize on the fame (or infamy, we guess it depends how you look at it).

Right after the war, the community made "Atom Bustin' Village of the West" its slogan and Donnell's design was the logo -- just as in this decal.

Connie Estep, curator at the CREHST museum in Richland, told us they knew about the slogan but hadn't seen the decal. The image and words were used as the cover of 1947's "Richland Day" program. Richland Day, an early Chamber of Commerce activity, was staged in '46 and '47 and in 1948 became the much-expanded "Atomic Frontier Days."

We're not sure exactly how your decal was used. Perhaps in vehicles or windows. Maybe some readers can recall?

Value, while not great, is hard to assess. The decal would likely be of interest only to collectors of early atomic energy items or Tri-Cities history buffs.

Dupus Boomer isn't around as a cartoon these days. But Donnell's character continues in a restaurant of the same name which opened several months ago at Washington State University.

w Terry Maurer, a Tri-Cities personal property appraiser and antique dealer, is a member of the Certified Appraisers Guild of America. You may submit your antiques and collectible questions to What's It Worth by e-mail to whatsitworth@clearwire.net

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Sunday, Dec. 28, 2008

Promoting products took form of paper years ago

By Terry Maurer, What's it Worth