British Singer Trade Cards

The Singer Company used paintings of birds, by Ridgeway, on a series of trade cards current in America for 30 years. Copyright dates run from 1899 to 1930. A similar series depicting British birds was circulated in Britain at the same time.

Very large numbers of these cards were distributed but there is an uncommon variant which seems only to have been in circulation for a few years after 1900.

This is a double card using an existing image of a lady at a sewing machine on the left and a bird on the right. On the back side there is data about the bird plus a Singer advertisement on the left and a line drawing of the bird on the right, for the recipient to colour in to match the image on the front.

I guess many cut the card in two so that they could look at the bird while they coloured in the drawing. When bisected the right half looks very like the traditional bird card whilst the left has a standard front and the line drawing on the back.

These cards were not the only advertising items designed to keep children occupied. At the same time, the Company distributed ‘The Singer Drawing Book for Young Artists’; a collection of line drawings of Singer machines, people and animals interleaved with tracing paper so that children could trace the picture and then colour it in without damaging the picture in the book!

by Martin Gregory