At the turn of the century

Puzzle Cards & Acrostics

Puzzle Cards

(click on thumbnails to enlarge cards)

Puzzle Cards were very common in the late 1800's and were in use until the early 1900's. They were primarily advertising, known as trade cards, given out by proprietors of drug stores, furniture stores, dry goods, shoe stores and doctors to advertise their wares and professions.

Images were hidden within a picture and the object was to find the buried or hidden image. Some cards would have to be turned sideways or upside down to find the image, some held to a mirror while others were more like an optical illusion.

Acrostics

(click on thumbnails to enlarge cards)

Another type of Puzzle Card was the Acrostic Card. In the 1860's and 70's publisher's such as Marcus Ward, Charles Goodall and Louis Prang printed Valentine's and Christmas Cards that had a mix of words and images to form sentences. The object was to be able to solve the message on the card. The Acrostic Card shown above is a folding card with the message beginning on the front and ending on the back. This card dates to the 1870's.

Visit our Greeting Card Galleries where we proudly exhibit over 1000 Vintage Cards.