Now the clue here was very elusive, and slightly out of focus, though I did my best. It is one of the words beneath the bottom frameline, and it is Anticipation.
Why Anticipation? Well, because that was the name of the first horse to win the Gold Cup at Ascot twice, in 1816 and 1819. The 1816 race saw him ridden by Sam Chifney junior for owner Mr Thomas Thornhill - and his odds were 10/1. By 1819, though he had the same jockey, he had been acquired by a Mr Goddard, and was the favourite to win.
Now Coats, along with Clarks, were the two main firms making sewing thread in the Paisley area of Scotland, and they started in the 1750s. We know this card was issued after 1890 though, because it starts by saying "J. & P. Coats`" and that name was only used after Coats and Clarks had merged.
This is an advertising card, but it is leaning towards becoming a trade card, because it carries a number, 2, and is one of a series - the idea being that when you had this card, you would be lured to buy more thread than you needed to collect the rest. This is a particularly appealing card, of the rosy cheeked baby, and it would have definitely appealed to its target market, young ladies, perhaps seamstresses dreaming of a time when they would have a child just like that, and find a man too.
I am not sure of the rest of the cards in this set - "Anticipation" is one of the words used by Fry`s in their five boys series, to which the rest are "Desperation", "Pacification", "Anticipation", "Acclamation" and "Realization - its Fry`s". At the time I originally used this card I said I was unsure how these could be applied to sewing thread. Well I now know that only one of those was reused here, which was "Desperation". The whole list is :
- Anticipation
- Decoration
- Desperation
- Preparation
- Temptation
And if you are a member of the Cartophilic Society you can see all these cards on page 153 of the September/October 2024 magazine.