H602 Reward of Merit Presidents Complete Set of (21) Cards

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 6/26/2023

The H602 Presidents set is a 21 or 22 card set created for advertising for multiple products during the late 1880's. There are 2-3 different variations of these sets and some include Grover Cleveland and some do not. The cards are black and white and generally have space on the front for advertising and blank backs for advertising. They are commonly found with advertising on the front and sometimes advertising on the back and, rarely, advertising on both the front and the back. They're very popular with collectors and often the blank stock is found with no advertising on the front nor the back.

This version of the H602 Presidents set contains (21) VGEX to EXMT cards with presidents from Washington through Chester A. Arthur. The Arthur card says "President from 1881" on the back. Arthur took over the presidency upon the death of James Garfield in September of 1881 and ran through March 4, 1885. As such, these sets were likely issued sometime in 1882, 1883 or 1884. This version of the (21) card set have "Reward of Merit" on the front which signifies they were likely used as incentives for school kids or Sunday school kids for completing some type of task. The "Reward of Merit" certificates are typically some type of ephemera or paper reward and date back to well before the 1850's. This set is unusual in that it is extremely clean and complete and has no significant condition issues.