COMPLETE SET OF FOUR POLYGAMY THEME VICTORIAN ADVERTISING TRADE CARDS printed in either pink, lavender or tan on a shiny silver or gold background. Each card is cut in the shape of a very small fan. No date, ca. 1880s.
Four Cards, each 10 X 8½ cm. (approx. 4 X 3¼ inches). The top area of each card is imprinted with the name of "The Simpson Mineral Spring, So. Easton, Mass." Condition nearly fine.
postpaid: $ 125
Elegant and rich in appearance, the sort of thing one might frame against a dark velvet background. The four pieces (stock Victorian trade cards, no publisher imprint) told a tale to amuse collectors more than a century ago:
A comical buffoon is torn between two kneeling women who grasp his hands. In the second card he walks off with one woman, who tosses a life preserver at the other who is leaping off a plank to her death . . .
The buffoon has next rushed to the side of the
would-be suicide who,
with the life preserver still around her feet, coyly eyes the horrified response of the poor clown as she raises a bottle of poison to her mouth, while the abandoned first woman aims one pistol at the couple and another at herself.
The last card finally shows the happily reconciled threesome standing arm-in-arm-in-arm beside a sign that points to UTAH. Mormon polygamy, in other words, is the answer whenever two women must have the same man . . .
