Trade card

Trade cards were an early form of commercial advertising used to attract customers. They came into general use in the eighteenth century when they typically featured an engraving of the trader's shop sign. By the beginning of the nineteenth century cards were often decorated with an engraving illustrating the product in use.

This was Robert Anderson's trade card, a gunmaker with premises on Macclesfield Street, Soho. Anderson was a journeyman at the firm Forsyth and Co. in Piccadilly before establishing his own business. He specialised in making guns for hunting, a popular country pursuit for his wealthy West End clients. On his trade card a hunter is shown using one of Anderson's rifles to shoot game in a rural scene. A gun dog can be seen in the foreground running off to pick up the falling bird. London enjoyed an international reputation for producing high quality firearms. Gunsmiths in Birmingham, a rival manufacturing centre, and even abroad, would falsely claim that their products were made in London to increase their value.