Gilded Age Canine Calling Cards

A dog playfully chews over the day’s news... Dated May 4, 1892, this Pairpoint Silver, gilded age, calling card tray would be at the ready to receive cards from visitors. Calling cards were the forerunners of today’s modern business card.

A Silly Fashion

“Oh, ha, ha! Just a little mention of a tiny absurdity before I append my autograph. Will you believe that my Lady Frivolity and the Misses Brainless made me a morning call while I was out, and with their precious cards I found a bit of pasteboard, about an inch long and a half an inch wide, which bore the name duly engraved upon it, of “Mr. Shepherd Collie!” It was fully one minute before this delightful joke dawned upon me with all its blinding luminosity. Mr. Shepherd Collie was their collie dog, who was accompanying them on their round of calls. 

Desiring not to be behind in the rigid etiquette of social life, I hied me to my stationer in order to cause to be engraved the same sort of card, with the names of my own canine family, ‘The Misses Poodle.’ But, bless you, the modish stationer keeps that sort of thing in stock. I found ready engraved—size, one and a quarter inches by a half of an inch, and done up in the usual visiting card packages of 100—‘Miss Minnie Black and Tan,’ ‘Mr. Suttie Pug,’ ‘Mrs. Willoughby Pug,’ ‘Mr. Frank Fox Terrier’ and ‘many others,’ as the ball lists say.”— Olive Logan in the Philadelphia Times, 1885

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