⏳ PRINTED ON DEMAND — Please allow 3–4 weeks for delivery

This book is printed one copy at a time when you order it. There is no warehouse shelf of these — your copy goes on the press after you check out. Hardcover binding takes longer than paperback. Please allow 3–4 weeks from order to delivery.

About this book

The best-lettered card in the world fails if the words don't sell — and the St. Louis Show Card School's 1922 Practical Phrases of Show Card Writing supplied the words. This vintage advertising phrase book collects the selling language of 1920s retail: the headlines, price appeals, and special-sale wordings that professional card writers lettered onto window and counter cards.

The St. Louis Show Card School was one of the trade schools that professionalized card writing in the early twentieth century, and this book distills what its instructors knew: that a card writer was half letterer, half copywriter. The phrases cover the full retail calendar — clearances, seasonal sales, new arrivals, special values — in the direct, confident language of the era. For anyone reproducing vintage store cards, these are the honest words to letter.

For sign painters doing period retail work, collectors of vintage advertising, and copywriters studying the roots of retail language, this 1922 phrase book is a delightful and practical resource. The phrasing is a time capsule of American merchandising — and a reminder that good selling language hasn't changed as much as we think.

Whether you letter the cards or collect the era, Practical Phrases puts the authentic voice of 1922 retail at your disposal. The words behind the letters.

Details: 6×9" hardcover (case laminate), black and white interior, cream paper.

⚠️ Please read before ordering — about print quality

This is a print-on-demand reprint of a scanned historical document. The pages were scanned from an original 1922 printing, and the print quality of your book reflects the condition of that original scan.

What that means in plain terms: you may see faded text, uneven inking, age spots, show-through from the back of pages, and other imperfections that were in the 1922 original or introduced by the scanning process. These are preserved as-is — they are not printing defects, and they are not something we can fix.

We are not responsible for the condition of the original source material. If you want a pristine modern typeset book, this isn't it. If you want the actual 1922 book with all its character intact, you're in the right place.

Printed on demand by IngramSpark. One copy at a time — no inventory, no waste.