Monday, June 25, 2012

Object of the Day: A Trade Card for Coffee and Yeast

Click Above Image to Enlarge


Omaha Nebraska’s Consolidated Coffee Co. and German Yeast Co. must have had some tie to one another other than location. The two late Nineteenth Century concerns are often connected in advertising of the period. Take, for instance, this trade card which came with a large lot of Victorian cards which I recently purchased.

Both companies call their product “German.” The coffee is German and the yeast is, too.

Furthermore, the card has some mild German-esque visual cues as well.

The front of the card shows beautiful (I want to say Magnolia, but I know I’m wrong) white flowers in close-up over a European-inspired landscape of a mountain range over an aqueduct and Schloss. This rather mixed-up image is nicely illustrated and has been embossed, giving it nice depth. Furthermore, at one point, the flowers and the blue space to the right corner of the card was once coated with a fine layer of silver glitter. Only traces of the glitter remain, sadly—the glue having given up the ghost long ago.

Let’s take a look at the reverse. As I said, it’s a double whammy. Why note that the deal was perfectly harmless? That makes me think that it isn’t.



To the Lovers of a Good Cup of Coffee 
     IF you want a good, strong, and at the same
time a pleasant cup of coffee, always use the 

GermanIt is a perfect belnd of fine flavors, and
has no equal. Try it, and you will use no other.
Put up only in one pound air-tight packages,
The Coffee being hermetically sealed with a
perfectly harmless coating, holds it aroma un-
til ground.


                                                                              Roasted and Packed only by the 
CONSOLIDATED COFFEE CO., Omaha, Neb. 

One of these cards in every package of
German.

____________________________________________



Bread is the Staff of Life. 

     If you want a good, sweet, wholesome Bread,
Always use
German Hop Yeast. It is a
strictly Vegetable yeast, no Chemicals or Brew-
ery Offalls used in its composition. Only Ger-
man Hops used, costing twice as much as com-
mon Hops.
     One of these cards with each five cent pack-
Age of GERMAN HOP YEAST.



                                             Put up only by the 
German Yeast Co., 
                                                     Omaha, Neb. 

Consolidated Coffee Co., Proprietors.



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