Card of the Day - 2024-12-10

Duke Tinted photos
W. Duke, Sons & Co. [tobacco : O/S : USA - Durham, North Carolina & New York] "Tinted Photos" (1887) Un/50 - D900-440 : D76-46.A : X2/89.A : USA/89.

This group is recorded in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as : 

TINTED PHOTOS. Sm. Girls, bust length portraits. Unnd. (50). Subjects unnamed. Ref. USA/89. See X2/89. ... D76-46
    A. Small cards with black border
    B. Portraits diecut to shape

This text is the same in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index except that it is missing the reference to X2/89 - this is because it appears in the Handbook to the original World Index, which at first was issued as a separate volume, but later combined together. This entry is very interesting for it shows a photo of the first forty-nine cards in a block, which must have appeared elsewhere, most probably in a cartophilic magazine, and, even more interestingly, it must have done so before the fiftieth card was discovered.

I am not sure whether the picture will reproduce well, it is rather dark, but I will do my best and add it for interest - and in any case I have discovered that all of the cards, including the die-cuts, are available to view at the Movie Card Website/89. They have also done a comparison checklist between the standard cards and the die cuts which is really fascinating. 

Anyway, the description of these cards in that Handbook to our original World Tobacco Issues Index reads : 

X2/89 TINTED PHOTOS. Small size. Issued by Duke. Unnumbered series of 50, of which 49 illustrated at Fig. X2/89. The 50th subject is a girl without hat or headdress, without jewellery, very low dress. 
   A. Small size cards, with black borders 
   B. Portraits die cut to shape. 

As far as USA/89, that takes us to Jefferson Burdick`s American Card Catalogue, where they are described as : 

89 - Tinted Photos (50) girls, black border
      a) ordinary small cards    b) die cut to shape

He values them all at twenty-five cents each.