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‘Everything changes, everything progresses…’ This Gem is a trade card, a business card for companies which would have been distributed to clients and potential customers to advertise their products, services and contact details. This card was produced for the French wine company, Byrrh, probably during the 1930s. It was part of a series of trade…
“Those over there are not giants but windmills.” You’ve probably heard the common phrase ’tilting at windmills’, which, as the well-read amongst you might know, originates in the misadventures of Don Quixote – the influential novel written by the Spanish writer Cervantes in the early 17th century. As an idiom it refers to wasting time, fighting imaginary…
Meet Biddy who worked for Bemis Bags for 79 years. Introduced as a company trademark in the 1880s for Bemis Bags, images of similar cats in bags were used in company products and advertising up until the 1960s. This is the original cat: her name is Biddy and she was a common sight at the…
Some mills have miraculous powers. This postcard was produced by the Belgium publisher Marco Marchovici in the early 20th century. The illustration is of elderly women entering the ‘Mill of Old Age’ on the right. On leaving the mill they have been transformed into glamorous young ladies. In the middle of the mill there is…
You never know what may lie inside an advertisement. This Gem is a trade card for Washburn Crosby Company Flour Mills, produced in around 1890 to advertise their Gold Standard Flour. What makes this trade card a Gem is the fascinating folding design: the picture of a traditional windmill on the front of the card…
Mills are often used as a symbol of rebirth. This intriguing Gem is a pre-First World War postcard entitled ‘The Reservist Mill’. It depicts German recruits going into the mill and coming out as reservists – the image explained by a poem underneath the mill: ‘Just as the finely-milled cornComes out as flourThe Recruit goes…
“Some of the work in a flour mill requires a good deal of muscular strength, and in peace days such work was considered unsuitable for women.” “Some of the work in a flour mill requires a good deal of muscular strength, and in peace days such work was considered unsuitable for women. However, when the…
A supposed French invasion craft designed to cross the channel during the Napoleonic Wars. In the late 1790s, Britain was gripped by the scare of an invasion by the infamous French warlord Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the channel he was amassing his forces; rumours of his conquests were rife and everyone knew he had set his…
A token used when the country was short of money. In the 18th century, a shortage of coins consistently caused widespread problems: workers could not be sufficiently paid and simple transactions could not be carried out. It wasn’t that everyone was poor – there just weren’t enough coins to go around. To compensate for the…
A pre-war note which became worthless is now an expensive collector’s item. This paper note is an old form of German currency called ‘Notgeld’, which was printed in 1922 and was worth 75 German marks. The image printed on the note depicts the development in timber milling from the old wind-driven mill on the right,…
