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Showing posts with the label trade card

An agent in the bookseller's basement

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N. Tibbals & Sons have an agent in their New York basement at 124 Nassau St. So states the trade card for their publishing and bookselling business. The back of the card states their agent is now in their basement with a bunch of very cheap books. And you need to come and see for yourself. These books have just come in from New York (Isn't Tibbals in New York?). And did they mention how cheap they are? The front of the card has the typical colorful Victorian, flowery decor, this one with butterflies. These images seldom, if ever, have anything to do with the business indicated on the card. But this card reiterates the business pitch on the front also, not the business name. In case you missed the message on the flip side, these guys have a basement full of very cheap books to sell you. There's an agent down there, too. According to Publisher's Weekly, Volume 52 , in an obituary for Nathan Tibbals, N. Tibbals & Son started in 1848 and conducted business for years at ...

Saunder's Old Book Store

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I was going to title, or even subtitle, this one, "Turkey at the Berlin Congress." The image on this card caught my attention. I knew it was a bookseller's trade card, but I couldn't make the curious connection to a platter of turkey and the Berlin Congress, whatever that was. And so I had to have the card. And then a history lesson. For a quick introduction, I went to the Wikipedia page for Berlin Congress , which opens with this: The Congress of Berlin (13 June - 13 July 1878) was a meeting of the European Great Powers' and the Ottoman Empire's leading statesmen in Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the meeting's aim was to reorganize the countries of the Balkans. The New World Encyclopedia contributes this, which helps to understand Turkey on a platter : Up until Berlin, Turkey had been viewed as a European power. Stripped of almost all European territory, it was no longer viewed as part of Europe. "I'm not sure w...