THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

One area that I like to collect billheads from is the UK. As you can imagine, UK printers printed some really nice elaborate and beautiful billheads. While trade cards didn’t take off in the UK as much as they did here, billheads are the exception. Recently I bought two lots of billheads from a dealer on ebay uk. As the dollar rises against these currencies, look for bargains amongst these European sellers. Be sure to go directly to the websites every now and again as not all items show up on the US ebay. One example is billhead for James Howden a watch maker and jeweler in Edinburgh Scotland. The date on the billhead is 1824. HOWDEN, James. Booked apprentice to Alexander Farquharson, Edin.,1764 — admitted freeman clockmaker, E.H., 1775. This well-known maker commenced business at 3 Hunter's Square, which premises he occupied till about 180.9, when he retired. He was succeeded by his son, also named James, who was admitted a freeman in 1809 — in 1825 he was at 56 North Brid...

There are many collecting areas to choose from for billheads. From collecting geographically, to business types, and to date ranges. I have scoured ebay and the internet looking at different collections of billheads and I am going to take the next many posts touching on collecting area. First, lets start with geography. That is, collecting from a certain country, state, city or town. Here is a simple breakdown of collecting billheads geographically: I. Country A. USA 1. 50 States a. Counties / Parrishes 1. Cities 2. Towns B. United Kingdom 1. England a. Counties 1. Cities 2. Towns 2. Scotland a. Cities b. Towns ...

Websites: The John Johnson Collection Roscommon, Ireland Rhode Island Norfolk, Virginia Chesapeake City, Maryland Am Baile Maryland Sacramento Glendale, Montana Central Pacific RR Books: Ely Billheads By Pamela Blakeman, Blakeman, Ely Society, Ely Society Published by Ely Society, 1984 Bought of: Nineteenth-century Sheffield Through Its Billheads & Related Documents By Mary Chesworth Published by Sheffield City Libraries, 1984 The Signboards of Old London Shops: A Review of the Shop Signs Employed by the London Tradesmen During the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries By Ambrose Heal Published by B. T. Batsford, 1947 Some American Billheads from the Collection of Bella C. Landauer at the New-York Historical Society By Bella Clara Landauer, New-York Historical Society, New-York Historical Society Published by Priv. issued, 1949 Accounts Rendered: Some Pembrokeshire Merchants' and Shopkeepers' Billheads from the 19th and Earlier 20th Centuries By Jim McBrearty Published b...

Billheads have generally the same anatomy. Top (Heading): Has a line to handwrite in the date and the name of the person who bought the items. The name of the company appears here usually behind the word “Bought of,” “Bro.” or See picture below for example. Usually any graphic is depicted to the left of the name of the company. I have yet to see a billhead that has a lone graphic to the right, usually if it has a right graphic it has graphics on both sides of the name of the company. See below for nice graphic of a rifle from EE Eaton. Body: Lines to write goods received. It is fascinating to see what is bought of companies. For instance, below is a billhead for Biggs, Spencer & Co. of Chicago showing that Austin Seeley has purchased boy’s guns. I have a whole slew of billheads for Seeley and will have a few posts later about this early Wisconsin gunsmith. Bottom: Usually indicates who the items were paid for and how the items were shipped. Sometimes proprietors wrote long no...

Taken from the wonderful article entitled: A Survey of Nineteenth Century Rhode Island Billheads by Russell J. Desimone. I have linked to it. You can read it for free through Google Scholar. Evolution of Billheads: 1800-1830 - Billheads were mainly in manuscript form. Looked very similar to what some might think of as receipts. Billheads from this time period are rare. These billheads tend to be on slips of paper and unevenly cut. 1830s - The start of pre-printed billheads and some use of graphics. 1840s and 1850s - Billheads started to appear in color usually light grey to medium blue. The printing was higher in quality and there was a greater use of graphics. An example of a billhead is below. The company was Henry Nazro. When Wisconsin was new, Henry J. Nazro and brother opened a medium sized hardware store in Milwaukee. By fair dealing an judicious advertising they called together customers from every portion of the State. As the State increased in population their busi...

Some definitions: From Wikipedia's article: BillHead receipts were common in business transactions from the late 1860s through the early 1940s... and in some cases, they can be found in present day transactions (although it is a less common practice now.) Many billhead receipts were illustrated and decorated with fancy steel engravings, while others carried no illustrations... in either case the receipt itself was important, as it was your proof of delivery. In general, most billheads contained: The Company Name & Address, A Unique Invoice Number, Payment Terms, Line Items for Products or Services, A Total, and (optionally) handwritten notes. From the American Antiquarian Society : The Billhead evolved from what was known as a "Trade Card," and in the twentieth Century, became known as letterhead. It was created by printing a heading at the top of a sheet of paper, usually from an engraved copper plate. The lower part of the sheet was used for writing a list, a not...