Better late then never - May billhead of the month

Well, May came and went and I forgot to post a Billhead of the Month. Between the class action at work and the medical needs of Gus the dog. my mind was elsewhere. Its June, and unfortunately the class action got decertified, which means I have time to do and think other things.

1863 billhead for T. Noakes show card writer located at 212 Broadway over Knox's hat store in New York City.

Billhead has an oval signboard which states: ready made cards for ever business always on hand. It looks like Noakes made charts for DHR Davis.

A show card at that time would be considered a poster today. While Noakes mainly states he is a writer of show cards, the signboard also indicates he has them on hand, so maybe he printed them too. At the time Noakes was in business it was the beginning of the market for colored lithographed advertisements.

Jay Last's The Color Explosion p. 262 discusses show cards in further detail. Last states show cards were meant t be prominently displayed and kept for an extended period. They usually were carefully framed and on store walls and windows. Full colored cards were first produced shortly before the Civil War and production peaked in the 1870s when smaller trade cards became more popular.

Noakes' history in the industry is murky. Last doesn't mention him in his book. We can follow Noakes through old city directories:

1845 a Thomas Noakes is listed as a grocer
1858 there is a Thomas Noakes listed as a writer
1860 Daversen & Noakes - champion show cards
1865 Thomas Noakes - cards
1872 - Thomas Noakes - cards

From April 1859 until June 1860, Noakes was in business with Charles Daversen at 208 Broadway. In May 1860, Daversen proposed that the two burn the business down to receive $1,100 in insurance money on the firms stork from the Hamilton Insurance Co. Fearing Daversen was going to proceed with the plan, one night Noakes went to the business found burning materials and extinguished them. The partnership dissolved thereafter.

Here is an example show card.

Comments

MrCachet said…

LOL. Torching a business that dealt in semi-permanent ephemera? Who knew?

June 5, 2011 at 6:40 PM

Baking Powder Billheads

In 1843 the first modern version of baking powder was discovered and manufactured by Alfred Bird, a British chemist. In 1846, Justus Von Liebig in Germany experiments with yeast made from sodium bicarbonate and hydrochloric acid with explosive results. In 1885, Eben Horsford and George Wilson manufacture chemicals which eventually became the Rumford Chemical Works. Horsford formulated and patented Rumford Baking Powder, the first calcium phopshate baking powder. In 1889, William Wright and chemist George Rew developed a double-action baking powder marketed under the name Calumet Baking Powder. Below find some examples of baking powder billheads.

Rubber Goods

The rubber industry in the United States can hardly be said to have had any real and tangible existence until the discovery of the process of vulcanization in 1844 by Charles Goodyear. The first rubber ever imported into this country was brought into Boston in the year 1800 and came in In that same year a patent was granted to one Jacob Hummel, of Philadelphia, for a gum-elastic varnish; of which, however, there seems to have been no further mention. Some ten years later, in 1823, a Boston sea-captain, coming from South American ports, brought with him a pair of gilded rubber shoes which excited the greatest interest. Two years later, 500 pairs of rubber shoes, made by the natives along the Amazon, were brought into Boston, this time without the fantastical refinement of gilding. They were exceedingly thick, clumsy, and unshapely shoes, and yet they sold readily, bringing from $3 to $5 per pair as they were found that they were a secure protection against dampness. This was the e

Billhead of the Month: Schmit Bros trunks Oshkosh WI

I picked up this Schmit Brothers billhead recently in Eau Claire. I currently have it for sale on ebay right now. It is a nice triple graphic billhead. Here is my ebay write up: 1895 billhead for The Schmit Brothers Trunk Company manufacturers of trunks, traveling bags and valises of Oshkosh Wisconsin. Great header graphics with three images. Left side is the firm’s mill at Summit Lake, middle is the firm’s factory and left side is the firm’s warehouse. Billhead has creases. Peter Schmit was born in 1840 in Prussia. He emigrated to the U.S. in June 1854 and located inRacine WI. He was engaged in farming until 1861 when he enlisted in Company D, 6th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry. He engaged in the battles at Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg, Mine Run, Bull Run, Gettysburg, Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah. He was mustered out in June 1865. He came back to Racine and kept a hotel until 1866 when he joined his brother Henry’s trunk business. Henry had established the bus

THE EPHEMERA OF BUSINESS

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