THE FOUR POINTS

On the backs of several of the Arbuckles' trade card series (and unnumbered individual cards, as well) can be found an advertising pitch which could almost be called the company's mantra. It's a list of reasons why coffee drinkers of the day should be more than willing to fork over their hard earned money for Arbuckles' coffee instead of for those "other brands", and warning "unwary" consumers away from their "low-grade" coffees. The company definitely took a hard-ball approach to sales!

This "Four Points" litany may appear by itself or in conjunction with other descriptive notes about the particular series or individual cards. While the style and layout of the text may vary, the verbiage itself never seems to.

The common text is shown below, and below that I've presented images of the various styles that I'm aware of, along with an indication of which series uses each style. The "Type" designations I've assigned are merely my own way of making it easier to associate specific cards with particular styles.

ARBUCKLES' ARIOSA COFFEE COSTS MORE AND IS WORTH MORE THAN OTHER BRANDS OF COFFEE WHY?   1st.  It is made from green coffee of higher grade and better drinking quality; and it is glazed at an actual cost to us of three-eights of a cent per pound.   2d.   Its entire strength and aroma are retained by our process of glazing coffee.   3d.   The ingredients used in glazing are the choicest eggs and pure confectioners' "A" sugar; in testimony of this fact, see our affidavit on each package bearing our name.   4th.   The glazing, composed of eggs and sugar, not only retains the full strength and aroma of our coffee, but gives to it a richness of flavor unknown to other coffees; besides it saves the expense of eggs used in settling unglazed coffee.   BEWARE of buying low grade package coffee     falsely purporting to be made of Mocha, Java and Rio; this being a cheap device, employed by the manufacturers to deceive unwary consumers. ARBUCKLE BROS. COFFEE CO., NEW YORK.

TYPE '1' Series: Short Sets - "Donkeys"	TYPE '2' 'a' - with lithographer's name at bottom 'b' - without lithographer's name Series: Miscellany - Unnumbered
TYPE '3' Series: Satire - Part 1	TYPE '4' Series: Satire - Part 2
TYPE '4a' Series: Short Sets - "Satire"	TYPE '5' Series: Miscellany - Numbered
TYPE '6' Series: Cooking	TYPE '7' Series: State Maps
TYPE '8' 'a' - as shown above, with red text 'b' - as shown above, but with black text 'c' - without the text between the horizontal lines from "Call on any..." through "Pound Package...", red text 'd' - same as 'c', but black text Series: "Counter" Cards	(shown smaller than actual size) TYPE '9' 'a' - as shown above, with red text 'c' - without the text between the horizontal lines from "Call on any..." through "Pound Package...", red text Series: "Counter" Cards
--image courtesy of Chuck Millburn (shown much smaller than actual size) TYPE '10' 'a' - as shown above, with red text 'c' - without the text beneath the horizontal line from "Call on any..." through "Pound Package...", red text Series: "Counter" Cards