A wide-eyed boy in academic robes and a stiff celluloid collar for a hat tilts a cylindrical cuff over a washbasin — water streaming out in a playful demonstration that these collars truly could be rinsed clean — in this vivid Victorian chromolithograph trade card issued by Allis & Redshaw, clothiers of 105 Main St., Birmingham, advertising Celluloid Waterproof Collars, Cuffs & Shirt Bosoms. Chromolithography at its most charming, the card uses humor to sell a genuinely revolutionary product: celluloid, patented in the late 1860s, allowed men of modest means to present a crisp, clean collar without daily laundering — a social and hygienic breakthrough that made these cards enormously popular giveaways in dry-goods and clothing shops of the 1880s. The reverse promotes Allis & Redshaw as "One Price Combination Clothiers," listing Children's Suits at $2.50, Men's Suits at $10, Men's Pants at $2.00, and a Fur Stiff Hat at $1.50 — prices anchoring the card firmly in the 1880s American retail landscape. The card is not a postcard but a Victorian advertising trade card, a format that predates and overlaps with the picture postcard era and is collected alongside postcards as ephemera.