Kristy Bowen

Antiques are a beautiful way to fill your home with a sense of history and style. While the thrill of the hunt is sometimes the point, identifying whether or not your antique is the real thing, by definition at least 100 years or older, can be challenging. While many beautiful and well-crafted reproductions exist, including high-end/high-quality pieces, they can sometimes be difficult to identify from the antique originals on which they're based, leading to confusion among both buyers and dea...

In the late 19th century, cigarette manufacturers began including slender cards in packs of their products featuring a wealth of subjects like animals, plants, comics, military uniforms, and entertainment figures. Cards were issued in numbered editions, with each pack containing one or several cards that would eventually form a complete set. Manufacturers of other products soon issued trade cards advertising their goods as well.
In the 1920s, several candy manufacturers like Goudey and Gum, I...

By the middle of the 20th century, television sets and programming were slowly creeping into most homes in America. Even for families that could not afford a set, the characters and performers in popular shows like The Lone Ranger and The Little Rascals were well known and captured the public imagination.
In the 1920s, before the dawn of television, several gum manufacturers like Donruss, Fleer, and Gum began producing numbered trading cards to sell alongside sticks of gum. These cards featur...

Vintage dishware is a great way to give any kitchen a sense of fun, retro energy, and a rich sense of the past. Vintage or antique dishes are beautiful for everyday use and displaying in your home, with offerings ranging from stacks of inexpensive pieces at flea markets and thrift stores to highly coveted and collectible items. While some styles were unique to certain manufacturers, others were offered by several companies, making finding your favorites easy, particularly if you are a collect...

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, numerous companies issued advertising cards featuring military subject matter devoted to famous battles. These cards were used to sell everything from shoe polish to men’s clothing. In the 1920s, several gum manufacturers like Donruss and Gum, Inc. began producing numbered trading cards to sell alongside sticks of gum. Cards featured popular film and entertainment stars, musical performers, sports figures, and historical subjects such as the American West an...

The earliest trading cards devoted to vehicles and the transportation industry began to appear in the first two decades of the 20th century. Ships, trains, and the earliest incarnations of air travel and automobiles began to be featured on advertising-oriented cards for manufacturers, retailers, and other transportation industry businesses. These cards typically featured an image of the vehicle and an identifying label on the front side, with larger blocks of information on the industry or ma...

During the late 1900’s, cards featuring musical performers were often used as advertising material for music-related businesses like instrument and sheet music retailers. In the 1920s, several gum manufacturers like Donruss and Gum, Inc. began producing numbered trading cards to sell alongside sticks of gum. These cards feature popular film and entertainment stars, musical performers, sports figures, and historical subjects such as military history and the American West.
While these manufactu...

The first comics trading cards were issued in the 19th century as promotional items accompanying products like candy, gum, coffee, cigarettes, and other merchandise. Cards vary in size depending on the product they were sold with, including small slender cards that were often included in packs of cigarettes. The comic cards usually feature hand-drawn illustrations of characters like brand mascots or promotional figures in storylines that developed over several cards in the series. Candy and g...

Fleer was founded in 1885 by Frank H. Fleer as a confectionary company. Fleer was the first manufacturer to produce bubble gum successfully and established its trademark pink color. In 1923, Fleer issued its first sports-related card series devoted to baseball with its famous Dubble Bubble chewing gum brand. The company released other sports-focused cards dedicated to football and basketball in the 1960s and 1970s.

Conflicts with the sports card company Topps, who sat atop a monopoly of sport...

Before the 19th century, most children’s books were a mix of stories, fairytales, songs, rhymes, and fables intended to entertain or teach important moral messages. They were meant for young readers to enjoy on their own but were also designed for adults to read these volumes to children. In the 19th century, a number of popular children’s authors came to the forefront, piquing the interest of young readers. These included Lewis Carrol and his famed Alice in Wonderland series, Robert Louis St...

The Goudey Chewing Gum Company was founded in 1919 by Enos Gordon Goudey, who opened his first factory that year in Boston, then a second in Allston, Massachusetts, which remained open until 1962. While cards had been included with cigarettes and other candy previously, Goudey was the first US company to include trading cards with gum beginning in 1933.

Goudey’s baseball cards were an immediate success and were differentiated from other similar cards by the use of illustrated art over photogr...

The history of children’s television books begins with the rise of television itself during the middle of the 20th century. While the television set was first introduced in the late 1920s, most American homes did not have them for another thirty years. The first television show geared toward children was the late 1940s BBC Children’s Television Hour, which introduced a wave of programming in the United Kingdom and America designed for younger audiences. Soon, books related to popular televisi...

Children’s sporting books written in the 19th century tended to focus on the playing and rules of sports and games such as football or outdoor winter sports. While they contained numerous images and illustrations to act as visual aids, they were usually written for older children. Early books were primarily directed toward boys, and later books included co-ed games. In the 20th century, the number of books written for children increased steadily, including the publication of books detailing t...

Gum, Inc. was founded in 1929 by Philadelphia confectioner Jacob Warren Bowman, who began making gum sold under the Blony label in 1929. The company went on to become one of the largest gum producers in the United States in the 1930s. By mid-decade, the company had begun producing a series of trading cards to accompany sticks of gum in their 1-cent and 5-cent packs of gum as purchase incentives.

The first major set was the 1938 Horrors of War series of cards, which featured battle scenes and ...

Science and nature books written for young audiences in the 19th century were often devoted to the plant and animal world. These books were usually written for older children and featured hand-drawn, engraved illustrations of animals and plants. More picture-oriented books were created for younger readers after the turn of the 20th century. A popular trend in early science and nature books for young readers were lessons relayed through fictional stories of children making new discoveries in n...