Mischief in a Cooperstown book shop
Revisiting Cooperstown (see Delos M. Wood, Cooperstown Bookseller ), here is an elaborately designed trade card for another Victorian-era, Cooperstown bookseller: S.J.W. Reynolds. The die-cut card conveys an image, rich in colorful, busy detail, appropriately in the shape of a book. The binding provides the business vitals, while the cover invokes an imaginative scene of mischievous elves at play while the owner's away (actually, he's just returned and caught them in the act). This scene also provides more opportunity for advertising some of the shop's products for sale--writing instruments, ink, periodicals, and assorted categories of books. I can date this to the 1880s or 1890s. I have found copies of Phinney's Calendar, or Western Almanac, 1885-1886, that show Reynolds as the publisher. So add that to this bookseller's resume. Also in 1890, a sales ad in a volume of Publisher's Weekly for Reynolds' bound collection of a full run of ...