Following up last weekends post featuring the 1965 Topps Presidents and Famous Americans set, check out a group of 4 Victorian era 19th century trade cards of some Presidents. These date to at least 1885 to 1889 based upon the printing on the Grover Cleveland card above. The Cleveland is clearly the last card in the set since it refers to his time in office as "President from 1885" while the other cards give the range of years they were in office.
I don't know much about the set overall. It includes an advertisement for The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company at the bottom, which is common for these kinds of cards. The backs are blank. As I had written previously:
Trade Cards are one of the more interesting hobbies to crop up in American history. It originally started in the late 1870's and thrived throughout the rest of the century. It became one of America's early fads and collecting crazes. They started out as business/ advertising cards given away to customers. The name of the establishment would be printed on the front with a simple design around the edges. Soon the designs became more ornate and customers started collecting them to put into scrapbooks. This started the age of Victorian scrapbooking in America.
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Those are amazing.
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