Victorian Calling Cards

Mark D. Ruffner

The Victorians enjoyed colorful calling cards! If you visit my page on Trade Cards and the Emergence of Corporate Identity (on the side bar, or here), you'll see that the Victorians delighted in the new process of chromolithography.

Generic lithographed images  — with spaces left blank for overprinting — were used for everything from ads to school rewards. The following five calling cards from my ephemera collection fall into that category.

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

 The image of this last card is highly embossed.

Mark D. Ruffner   

Some Victorian calling cards had patterned backgrounds, like the four following ones. I think of the one directly below as being a Gothic pattern, though I think it's actually supposed to be lace.

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

One of the things that makes these patterned calling cards appealing is that the pattern is repeated on the back side.

 

Mark D. Ruffner   

Mark D. Ruffner   

My favorite Victorian calling card (and a favorite of the entire ephemera collection) is Joshua B. Gayman's hand stenciled card.

Most of these cards are the size of a modern business card. Joshua's is a little smaller, approximately 2¾" x 1½".

The stencil Joshua Gayman used would have been a paper-thin piece of copper — like the one below — and it's easy to imagine that he used it on many items besides calling cards.

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