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Postcard 1880s Victorian Trade Card Burdock Blood Bitters BBB Girl Quack Medicine
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Pre-linen · 1882

Postcard 1880s Victorian Trade Card Burdock Blood Bitters BBB Girl Quack Medicine

Port Henry, New York, USA1882Pre-linenGood

A rosy-cheeked girl in a blue satin dress and matching hair bow clutches a bright red package of "BBB" — Burdock Blood Bitters — while a promotional banner hangs in the parlor behind her, her bare legs and coquettish pose entirely typical of the chromolithographic trade card genre that flooded Victorian homes in the 1880s; the reverse names her "May" in a breathless advertising text promising the tonic cures everything from dyspepsia to "blood diseases" and "low spirits." Printed in rich, embossed chromolithography by Cosack & Co. of Buffalo, N.Y. — one of the foremost Victorian trade card printers — for Foster Milburn & Co. (also Buffalo), the card was retailed by H.R. Field, agent druggist of Port Henry, New York, whose name is rubber-stamped in red on the reverse. The back copy, titled Call Her May, includes five glowing testimonials from named customers in Wisconsin, Ontario, and Indiana. A full set of cards was available by mailing 3 cents in stamps to Foster Milburn & Co., Buffalo — making this part of a collectible series even in its own era.

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PC-01555 · Foster Milburn & Co., Buffalo, N.Y. / Cosack & Co. (printer), Buffalo, N.Y.
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