Card of the Day - 2023-12-22

Santa Claus Soap Pair
The N.K. Fairbank Company [trade : soap : O/S : USA] "Father Christmas Advertising Card" (1898) 1/?

So here we have Christmas as it ought to be, Father Christmas red and jolly and a small child delighted with a bar of soap. Mind you it is a large bar of soap. 

N.K. Fairbank operated out of New York and Chicago, later also from St. Louis, and ran a scheme where the wrappers could be exchanged for gifts. In fact though this is an advertising card, it is mainly a list of the gifts that you had to save up for, wonderful things, starting with pictures and fishing tackle, but moving into jewellery, sheet music and musical instruments, baseball kit, even the magical offer of your photo on a button - which most of the users could only dream of being able to do.

However there was also a reason for the scheme, because it prevented anyone stealing the soap and selling it unwrapped at a bargain rate. And this was very clever indeed.

Now although this card shows Santa Claus and the soap is named after him, they also made Fairy Land Soap, presumably for the summer months so that the name remained in the public eye, and was then magically altered just in time for Father Christmas to come into view.