Trade Catalogs

In this section we feature Trade Catalogs, often heavily-illustrated and fully-priced publications that record merchandise, goods, supplies, or products devoted to a single merchant or producer, intended to advertise and promote sales. These ephemeral items provide especially valuable documentation of commercial and material culture, and they offer an invaluable record of products and businesses that frequently have no other witness.

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Inspired by William Morris and the Arts & Crafts Movement in England

Trade Catalogs and a Victorian manual documenting cycling in the early 20th century

Trade Catalog as Work of Art: Paul Haviland’s photographs promoting a master craftsman: The Art Deco glasswork of René Lalique

The illustrations of the firm’s latest model of shoes are interspersed with 8 pages of caricatures drawn by Hector Moloch (1849-1909).

Men's clothing catalog from the firm La Mondiale with 50+ textile samples.

Fine copy of a liquor brochure, icluding absinthe

Leading manufacturer of prosthetic limbs during and just after the First World War.