Object of the Day: A Trade Card for Boots and Shoes

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Here we have another issue with proportion. Either that’s one giant parakeet or one very small kitten. In any event, they’re not friends. To be accurate, the parakeet doesn’t really seem to care too much. He’s unfazed, but the kitten is entirely incensed.

That said, I find this card delightful and smiled when I found it amongst a new set of Victorian trade cards. In fact, I think that’s what I find appealing. It’s just such a Victorian scene. I’m not sure what the parakeet is sitting on. It looks like a box of matzo, but doubt it. Whatever it is, in pure 1880s fashion, it’s draped in a shawl and adorned with rosebuds and wheat.

This, of course, is a stock trade card which would have been selected from a catalog. The selector, it appears, was one:

HENRY DAMON, 
Boots & Shoes. 
25 Essex Street, 
BOSTON. 

The printer is listed as “something unreadable” Stetson, Printer, Quincy, Mass.

Let’s see what the reverse says:

HENRY DAMON, 

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL 

------------------------------

---<< BOOTS AND SHOES, >>--- 

------------------------------

25 ESSEX STREET, 

BOSTON. 

O.M.A.      M.R.A.      H.C.      and      U.F. 

I have no idea what those initials mean. All I know is that these two natural enemies—parakeet and cat—will forever be frozen in a strange, blasé, antagonistic dance. And, that, to me, is neat.

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