What a Card(s)!

I recently came across more pages from the album printed by William S. Kimball and Company for its 1889 "Fancy Bathers" cigarette card series. I had read that there were fifty cards issued in this series; each album page had a place to paste five cards, but I now have a total of eleven pages with spaces for cards, which would make 55 voluptuous bathing belles. Looking back on the original post, I realized the first pictured page must have been from a different cigarette album, as it is 9 inches tall by 6 inches wide, while all the other pages are 7.5 inches by 6 inches. Checking the five bathing belles pictured on the larger page against a list I found of the beauties in Kimball's "Fancy Bather's series," I discovered that one of the pictured scenes is labeled "Nice," which was not part of the Kimball series. Further, looking closely at the ladies, although they are as lovely as those pictured in the Kimball album, they were done by a different artist. So not only do I apparently now have the complete set of Kimball's seaside sirens, I have an extra page from another cigarette card album.

Although the pages show some wear and creases, the colors of the chromolithography are still bright and vivid. The pages at one point had been tied together with red thread, but several had come loose, so without page numbers, it is not clear what, if any order, they should be placed.

I discovered a bit of an artistic cheat as well.

Ms. Helgoland, pictured on the above page. . . 

was apparently separated at birth from her long-lost twin, Ms. Dinard, displayed in the earlier post.

The Kimball album offered a bonus feature as well, with some pages portraying . . . 

a full page portrait of one of the cards. Here Ms. Trouville gets a starring role.

An extra-large Ms. Paramé showing off her lustrous locks.

Ms. Saint Malo wades in the waves.

Ms. Ostende holds on to her demure bonnet while a naughty zephyr bare the tops of her thighs.

This page offered two enlarged lovelies. . .

Ms. Saint Enegat and. . . 

Ms. Torquay.

Only one page is printed on both sides. This appears to be the end of the album, advertising various varieties of Kimball's "Finest High-Grade Smoking Mixtures." The page also features cards of comic frogs. They were the work of American illustrator and author Henry Louis Stephens (1824–1882), known for his amusing anthropomorphic animals. 

The back of the page, and the album, features a bathing beauty seated on an oversized seashell. The bottom edge is marked "Julius Bien & Co Lith." Julius Bien (1826-1909) arrived in New York City from Germany around 1848, founding a successful lithography enterprise. He was the first president of the National Lithographers Association and may be best known for his beautiful, although unfinished, chromolithographed edition of John James Audubon's The Birds of America. I wonder whether there was also a front cover printed on both sides as well. 

In the Cards

These colorful beach belles in their vivid bathing suits are part of an album printed by William S. Kimball and Company, who, in the 1880s, was one of the largest cigarette makers in the world. The invention of machinery to roll and cut cigarettes made cigarettes cheap and plentiful. To expand their market and outcompete their rivals, tobacco companies had to come up with innovative ways to make their products stand out. Originally cigarette packs came with a card or "stiffener" to prevent the cigarettes from being bent or crushed. Beginning in the 1880s, tobacco companies began printing these cards with colorful images. Many of those early images were made to appeal to a largely male clientele, such as sports, military themes, and of course, pretty ladies, such as stage actresses and bathing beauties.

The cards were issued in a series, motivating customers, the tobacco companies hoped, to collect them all (each card included on the back a helpful list of all the other cards in that series). This series entitled "Fancy Bathers," was issued in 1889. There were 50 cards in the series, encouraging a lot of purchasing and puffing in order to procure the full passel of pulchritudinous ladies.

Of course, one needed a place to keep this collection of curvaceous cuties and Kimball obliged by providing a colorful album. These are three pages from the album Kimball issued for its "Fancy Bathers" bevy of cardboard beauties. Each page contains trompe l'oeil images of several of the cards, set against appropriate aquatic backgrounds. As a card was acquired, it could be pasted atop its simulacrum. It is questionable whether such bold and brief bathing attire was ever worn to the beach. I suspect these tobacco cards were the "Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue" of their day, featuring scandalous scanty swim attire far more likely to appear in print and the male imagination than at the seaside.