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J. & P. Coats Threads

1881 One colored card advertising J. & P. Coats Needles and Threads. Copyrighted, 1881, Auchincloss & Bro., NY. 3" x 4½". $5 at Foster City, Feb., '97.

A monkey restrains a cat by means of a Coats thread while he holds a fish before the cat's face. On the back is a table of sewing machines, needles, and threads.

1881? One colored card advertising J. & P. Coats Needles and Threads. 3" x 4½". $15 at Foster City, Feb., '97.

As in the 1881 card copyrighted by Auchincloss, a monkey restrains a cat by means of a Coats thread while he holds a fish before the cat's face. On the back of this card, by contrast with that, is an advertisement for J. & P. Coats which starts "We will not weary you with statistics…." Statistics made up the whole back of the other card! A dealer has noted on the back of the card that it is pictured in Cheadle, Victorian Trade Cards (and now, three weeks later, I cannot find it there!).

1890? One colored card advertising J. & P. Coats Thread. 3" x 4½". $25 from The Cartophilians, Cheshire, CT, March, '98.

This is one of the most dramatic trade cards I have. The lion is bound up with threads, and the mouse sits perched on a spool of J. & P. Coats Best Six Cord thread. The other side of the card gives the fable and a long application, both apparently taken verbatim from Croxall. The card's picture is in a style different from all other Coats cards I have found, especially when it inserts three colored boxes to give information: "Spool cotton," "For hand and machine," and "See the other side for fable."