Tricks of the Trade

This 19th century 2-frame animated advertisement is part of a set of five reproductions of give-aways from the period. The thing they all hold in common is that they did their “work” through some sort of trick of the eye: a flipbook with a moving image, a thaumatrope with persistance of vision, the mechanical card (as seen above), a sliding envelope with hidden image, and a transparency card whose final message (and joke) is derived only through holding it to the light. “Tricks of the Trade” is a unique view of some rare methods of advertisement. Packaged in an old-fashioned “candy-like” cellophane bag with color header.
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