Sunday, February 8, 2015

Another Set of Trade Cards with Crazy Stitches

Another Set of Trade Cards with Crazy Stitches
This set was produced for Brainerd & Armstrong Silk Works by the Donaldson Brothers of Five Points, NY.  The cards feature anthropomorphic spools frolicking around a manufacturing plant with an advertising verse for their product.  The reverse sides have the same image of Brainerd & Armstrong’s Crazy Stitches.
 
Card 1: Spools playing in the ocean by the factory near a boardwalk
 
A Seaside Frolic
We cut quite a dash, and make quite a splash
In the seas, as we frolic around,
But never you laugh, for this is not half
The sensation we’re making in town.
 
Card 2:  Spools under the moonlight, running outside the factory, dancing, conducting, playing instruments: fiddle, banjo, flute, trumpet
 
A Moonlight Frolic
A jolly good company we,
With us quiet life don’t agree;
We’re so smooth and so long, so elastic and strong
We cannot lie still, don’t you see?
 
Other text on card fronts:
Brainerd & Armstrong Silk Works
Use Brainerd & Armstrong’s Spool Silk
Donaldson Brothers, Five Points, N.Y.
 
Donaldson Brothers, Five Points, N.Y.
Brothers George, Frank, John, and Robert founded the firm Donaldson Brothers Steam Lithographic Printers in 1872.