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HATTERS, CLEANERS, AND DYERS!!!!!

Circa 1875:
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The Lost Cowboy

One Too Many
Messages
1,696
Location
Southeast Asia
Circa 1875, real Lincoln vibes with this one:
View attachment 619338
Wow, the word “fiend” was being used way back then for “addict.” Like “drug fiend”. I always thought this was a more contemporary usage - fascinating.

Fascinating (and funny) how they have Old Honest Abe fiending so hard that he’s lying (he wants some for his little girl… riiiight…. fiend!) And this in 1875 - not ten years after his death.

But I don’t get what he’s asking for. It says “card fiends” but it’s a mens wear store? Were there some kind of cards that were collectibles at those places?

Cool stuff, even if a bit confusing - thanks for sharing!

Edit: just some quick Google work gave me the answer: indeed, these were collectible cards, including some kind of baseball cards but also other subjects. This looks like a deep rabbit hole so I didn’t look closely for fear of falling in, but here’s the first website I saw:

 
Last edited:
Wow, the word “fiend” was being used way back then for “addict.” Like “drug fiend”. I always thought this was a more contemporary usage - fascinating.

Fascinating (and funny) how they have Old Honest Abe fiending so hard that he’s lying (he wants some for his little girl… riiiight…. fiend!) And this in 1875 - not ten years after his death.

But I don’t get what he’s asking for. It says “card fiends” but it’s a mens wear store? Were there some kind of cards that were collectibles at those places?

Cool stuff, even if a bit confusing - thanks for sharing!

Edit: just some quick Google work gave me the answer: indeed, these were collectible cards, including some kind of baseball cards but also other subjects. This looks like a deep rabbit hole so I didn’t look closely for fear of falling in, but here’s the first website I saw:

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Yep, Card Fiends were card collectors. They would collect and often paste in albums. Goes back a ways with these advertising illustration cards and even back to collecting CDV photos and CDV illustration cards and even collecting signatures/photo's of famous people back in the 1860's.

EDIT: In collectors of ephemera and books CIRCA is an confident educated guess of time being a 10 year spread (of 5 years either side), so in this case of Circa 1875 the spread would be 1870-1880.:)
 

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