Chocolat Côte d’Or Album Botanica.

Brussels, Belgium: Affiches Marci, circa 1930.

Folio, (38 x 33) cm, 20 pages. Text in French and Flemish. Album containing 156 pasted-in chromolithograph trade cards. Album produced for Côte d’Or customers to collect, specifically, the company’s botanical trade cards. Each page contains an outlined area for eight specific cards with a description for each printed in French and Flemish. Full-color trade cards are pasted down and depict a wide range of flora, fauna, and fungi. Album contains the full set. Côte d’Or was founded in 1883 by Belgian chocolate manufacturer Charles Neuhaus. Both the company’s name and logo (an elephant surrounded by palm trees and pyramids) recalls the African origin of the source of the cacao beans used in the production of chocolate. The company is still producing chocolate today. An incredible example of vibrantly colored and elaborately designed trade cards and the intersection of advertising and the popular hobby of collecting. Cards and album produced by Belgian printing house Affiches Marci, a company established in 1819 and still in business today. In slightly rubbed and bumped boards with slightly fraying green cloth spine; the front cover features a full color illustration of the botanical cards with the company’s logo and the back features slightly faded checked floral pattern. Some slight edgewear and foxing to pages and cards, otherwise very good.

Price: $250.00