Quack Medicine Victorian Trade Cards

A bit of fun this morning... lately I've been buying quack medicine Victorian trade cards to supplement my match & medicine collection. They are beautifully done and very entertaining to read, and add color to my M&M collection. Best of all they are plentiful and most of the time much cheaper than the stamps themselves! Here are 3 I've recently received and their corresponding stamps. The trade cards probably date from the later years of the tax law at the earliest. The Schencks is interesting as it is printed on a frosted vellum paper that you hold up to the light - the kid's and the cat's eyes are then open - it looks a bit ghostly when you do that though...

Very nice, Southpaw. I think collateral material like that is what really makes a collection special.

We know which forum we're on when rustyc uses the word 'collateral', letting us know what is central to the collection.

But what would be a more neutral term? 'Complementary'?

"... buying quack medicine Victorian trade cards to supplement my match & medicine collection ..."

Sounds like ephemera that includes stamps. Timbrephemera? Uh-oh, here we go again ...

What fun! I'm particularly impressed that Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor can cure a Felon quicker than anything else known

I'd stick with I and D for felons, despite this lofty claim...

Also, back to the original scans of Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor, here's a bit of trivia: The company assuming control of the product after Henry Dalley, Sr.'s death was Cornelius V. Clickener, the first Mayor of Hoboken, NJ (1855-57)!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornel...V._Clickener

An interesting history on the Schenck's Mandrake Pills and related medicine stamps are documented here:

http://www.rdhinstl.com/mm/rs212.htm

And H.R. Stevens' Vegetine is documented here:

http://www.rdhinstl.com/mm/rs228.htm

These are in nice condition. However they are not even the tip of the tip of the iceberg, there are hundreds of different cards, and some are quite scarce.

Neat stuff and helpful to my revenue M&M collection. I also have one of the Schenck stamps that I can add more info too. I have an old card like hose above too that I'll have to scan later. It's from a Dr. Hand.

I make my own pages, so it's not difficult incorporating other interesting items into the pages. I also have a few covers, facsimile labels and battleship cancellations I've worked into the pages. The pages are 12 x 12 and use We R Memory Keepers scrapbook 3-ring binders which are durable and beautiful. The cards, since they a 2-sided, pose a bit of a problem though. For now I use clear plastic postcard pages which hold 6 to a page. What I really need is plastic mounts in the proper size like what the APS sells for mounting stamps in circuit books. Any leads?

Revcollector, I recently bought a lot of 48, I was the only bidder, probably because the cards were glued on scrapbook pages a century ago. I got lucky though as a soak in warm water releases the cards. Having been attached to pages actually kept the edges from getting worn or dog eared. I'll post some more soon.

It should be noted that the Dalley's Magical Pain Extractor example shown is one of the "$100 a box" varieties from before the decimal point was added.