Louise Brooks – Vintage Postcards and Trading Cards

  As with other Hollywood and non-Hollywood stars, Louise Brooks’ image could be found on a number of commercial products. In the 1920s and 1930s, these products included printed items such as postcards, trading cards, and what are colloquially known as cigarette cards. The most familiar, of course, are postcards. They require a postage stamp to be sent through the mail, typically had an image on the front and space for a message on the back, and measure approximately 4 x 6 inches (or 10.2 x 15.2 cm). Trading or product cards were, as a rule, smaller in size, and were usually inserted into the packaging of a variety of items such as bread, cookies, candy (chocolate and gum), sugar, flour, and tobacco. The cards known as cigarette cards are considered a subset of trading cards, but differ in that they were inserted into just one type of product, namely packs of cigarettes.

Essentially, trading cards were novelty items inserted into product packaging as an inducement to purchase… as in buy our product and “collect them all”. Though such cards were considered disposable and sometimes poorly printed, others were finely printed, attractive, and collected by film buffs or fans of the actor or actress they depicted. Some card publishers, whose series ran into the dozens or hundreds, even issued albums as a further inducement to collectors. Along with cards, albums also survive.

Two less common categories of cards are advertising postcards — which were created to promote a specific product (one example is shown below), and arcade cards. Unlike postcards or trading cards, arcade cards were purchased not with products or in stationary stores or five-and-dimes, but from vending machines found in arcades, boardwalks, or amusements parks. Typically, these ephemeral promotional cards were printed on slightly thicker cardboard stock. Most of the arcade cards depicting Brooks are of American origin.

postcard, Belgium Hobe-film	advertising postcard, Spain Borotalco Ausonia	postcard, U.S.S.R. Tea-Kino-Pecat #6

Examples the above mentioned card types can be found on one or more of the following pages on the Louise Brooks Society website.

VINTAGE POSTCARDS & TRADING CARDS

Vintage postcards, cigarette cards, and trading or product cards depicting Louise Brooks were issued in the United States, South America, across Europe including the old Soviet Union, and in a one or two countries in the Middle East (Egypt and Turkey) and colonial Africa (such as French Algeria). Interestingly, cards bearing an image of the actress were issued in such distant locales as Cuba, the Canary Islands (which were governed by Spain), the Azores (controlled by Portugal), and Malta (once governed by England, but now an independent state). It can be argued that Brooks’ fame extended to many far flung corners of the world.

cigarette card, Malta Scerri’s Cinema Stars #99	product card, Spain La Novela Semanal Cinematografica #319	product card, Italy as “Louise Broors”	product card, Angola Fabrica Triunfo #72

LEARN MORE:

The first cigarette cards were issued in 1877, well before the movies began. The idea of including a card in a pack of cigarettes or tobacco caught on and thousands of sets were issued all around the world from the 1880s through about 1940, when with the outbreak of the second World War, such cards were deemed a waste of paper. These late 19th century and early 20th century cards pictured just about every conceivable subject, from celebrities such as sporting figures, politicians and authors to non-human subjects such as animals (like racing hoses), flags, and scenes from famous and picturesque locales from around the world. Importantly, they also depicted, at least at first, stage actors and actresses. In the early years of the 20th century, with the rise of motion pictures as the dominant form of entertainment, cards picturing individual film actors and / or movie scenes  grew in popularity.

There is an extensive community of postcard and trading card collectors on the internet, and in the real, off-line world as well. To learn more, follow one or more of these links:

— Wikipedia has a page on the general history of postcards. It is informative and worth checking out.

— Troy Kirk’s superb Movie Card Website documents trading cards from all around the world. It is thorough, authoritative, illustrated, and informative. I recommend it highly. It also features a Brief History of Movie Star Trading Cards, checklists, links, and more.

— One of the most attractive and sought after postcard series were issued by Ross Verlag, a Germany company. The site devoted to the Ross Verlag Movie Star Postcards and Other Vintage European Postcard Publishers is an information and pictorial goldmine. It also includes information on the Iris Verlag cards from Austria.

— Another excellent site is Virtual History Film, an extensive, illustrated site documenting mostly German cards.

— Also well worth checking out is European Film Star Postcards. It too is illustrated, as is the Cabinet Card Gallery.

— Non-Sport.com features checklists of a number of unusual non-sport sets, including some related to stage and film stars

Want to start collecting? Vintage cards of all sorts regularly show up on eBay and other online auction sites. Or visit the Vintage Non-Sports Cards Chat Board.

If you were a film buff in Great Britain in the silent and early sound era you may have noticed postcard advertisements in Picturegoer, a popular British film magazine. It issued its own series of movie star postcards. The ad shown below lists the many actors and actress whose image was available on a postcard. Ads like these, which listed Louise Brooks, ran in 1929 and 1930. This example dates to February 1931, which is notable as Brooks’ career was beginning to fade by that time. The magazine offered two kinds of cards, sepia-toned glossy postcards, or colourgraph postcards. Brooks is listed in each category. Other publications, such as Cinémonde, a leading French film magazine, also issued their own branded postcards, as did La Novela Semanal Cinematografica and La Novela Frívola Cinematografica, two Spanish magazines.