New York One Price Clothing House, Rochester, New York Original Victorian advertising trade card, chromolithograph, c. 1880s. Approx. 4.15 x 2.45 in. Two girls in red winter coats and bonnets skate together on a frozen pond, bare trees and a distant skater behind them. Tall stylized chrysanthemums rise on the left from a red urn at the foot of the card. The printed text reads: GO TO THE New York One Price Clothing House, Where they are Selling their FALL & WINTER CLOTHING REGARDLESS OF COST! M. H. Carroll, 10 West Main St., Rochester, N.Y. The reverse is blank. HISTORICAL CONTEXT “One Price” was the selling point, and to a modern reader it looks like no selling point at all. In the 1880s it was the whole pitch. Haggling was still normal in dry goods, which meant the price you paid depended on how hard you argued and how the clerk read you. A one-price house was promising you would not be taken advantage of for being polite. The picture makes the same argument without saying it. Two children, plainly dressed up warm, out on the ice. Buy the coats here and this is what your winter looks like. CONDITION Toning and age typical of the period. Light surface soiling; minor edge and corner wear; small nicks to the edges. Colors remain strong. Blank reverse with light toning. Please view the images carefully. ABOUT THE PRINTING This is an original chromolithograph. Each color was drawn onto its own separate stone by hand and printed as its own pass through the press, every pass registering exactly against the last. This card uses the flat-color mode of the process — broad areas of solid, opaque ink with crisp boundaries rather than blended tone. It is the same technique that produced the great poster designs of the period. Under magnification the colors resolve as solid fields with clean edges and no dot structure at all. There is no halftone screen and no four-color rosette, which is what a modern reproduction would show. Modern process printing simulates every color from four inks; here each color is its own ink, laid down whole. PROVENANCE This item comes from the personal collections of my family estate, accumulated over more than 200 years — including items that came west by wagon train to Colorado and later to Oklahoma. Now that my parents have passed we cannot keep all of these cherished items. They were well-educated antiques collectors/traders and continued to build their collections over more than 60 years. The vast majority of the pieces are from the Victorian Era, however there are plenty of older and newer items. Everything has been stored in a climate-controlled environment over time. DISCLAIMER Specifications and detailed item descriptions are provided as a courtesy only and are not guaranteed to be one hundred percent accurate. Please do your own research. There are generally no receipts available for any items from original purchases. Any dimensions and/or weights are approximate. The absence of a more detailed condition report does not imply there are no condition issues with the item(s). Please inspect images carefully as they are part of the official item description and best representation of the actual condition. Additional images may be available upon request depending on time and availability. Not responsible for internet mis-translations or mis-identification of maker's marks if found or assumptions of makers or materials — item descriptions will indicate if it is assumed. If you see a problem, please message us immediately and we will do our best to sort out a solution and confirm the information. With the exception of eBay rules, no returns are accepted. Ref#ADV-002