The advertising image at the very top of this page is for Chase's Glue. This remarkable image provides a window into the history of trade cards. A century ago, advertisers gave millions of colorful advertising trade cards away, and Victorians across America fell into the hobby of collecting these cards and pasting them into scrap book albums for their parlors. Actually, contrary to Chase's claims, most glues were about the same. To save money, some Victorian collectors even made their own flour-based pastes for holding cards in scrapbooks.
Many trade cards have stains on the back from such glues.
Stock cards often have a blank area in the design that can be found with a wide variety of imprints ranging from small local stores to patent medicine ads for companies that were trying to cut corners in their advertising budgets. Once in a while, the image or the imprint on a stock card is so compelling that the card is in very high demand. The Centennial Exposition trade card to the left was printed in 1876 by a Boston lithographer named Bufford, who left a large blank area in the lower left corner so that various firms could imprint their own unique advertising. Nationalistic symbols including a fife and drum corps of Uncle Sam look-alikes, patriotic flags, Union soldiers, and a distant Washington D.C. skyline all add to the card's strong appeal. Most trade card collectors appreciate the social history aspects of trade cards.