This set of dust-jackets is unusual in two ways. First, it features original fables by someone other than either La Fontaine or Florian. Secondly, it seems not to be advertising anything. It lists only the printer Vagné in Pont-à-Mousson. Lovely color-printing! The text of each original fable is on the back cover of its dust-jacket. €9 each from Albert van den Bosch, June, '23.
1890? 10 large (5½" x 7") cards presenting La Fontaine's fables. Text is set into the picture in a rectangle. Advertisers on the verso include Les Grand Magasins du Printemps du Paris and Chicorée Bleu-Argent Arlatte from Cambrai. Printed by Publicité Bascoul-Olmer Vincennes. Extras of four of the cards (DW, FG, GGE, and "The Heron").
The pictures are colorful and impressive traditional scenes. Often they include a second reference, as when DW shows the dog animals meeting in a circle at the upper left, while the bulk of the picture shows a scene of a poor old man (the wolf) conversing with a plump man in uniform (the dog). FG has both a fox and grapes in the foreground and then, slightly set into the background, a courtier looking up to damsels in front of a castle. Other fables, like WL, GGE, and "The Heron," are presented simply in one scene. Besides DW, my favorite among these cards is BF. People point smiling at a dowdy gentleman who stands alone away from the crowd. Other fables as yet unmentioned include FS, GA, MM, and "Le Laboureur et ses Enfants." The verso of the Arlatte exemplars presents no nore than "Chicorée Bleu-Argent Arlatte Cambrai." The Printemps versos all show the same picture of a child with a balloon inscribed "Le Printemps est l'ami des enfants." A curiosity here is that the "Au Camélia" card for DW has the title "Le Chien et le Loup," while other DW cards have the title "Le Loup et le Chien." The illustrations on these cards are identical with those on Paris prize cards.
1913 A.T.C. Turkish Trophies Cigarettes. About 80 of the Turkish Trophies cards arranged in an album after both picture and text were pasted onto a new card and the former's gold frame extended around the latter. $17.50 from Doris Larson, Little Falls, MN, April, '00.
There have been other collectors as crazy as I am. This collector took a lot of time. First, the collector found two of every card. Secondly, she or he cut the text portion (title, fable, and moral) from the back of one of each pair and, thirdly, pasted both picture and text onto a new and slightly larger card. Finally the collector used a brush or pen to extend the golden stripe around the now lower text portion. Doris offered six loose cards on Ebay, and our contact led to my purchasing the whole album. We collectors can be a strange lot!
