1915 Ornate Pink Border Movie Cards

These cards are a bit of a mystery to me. I believe 1915 to be a pretty good date based on the information provided on the fronts of the cards (backs are blank), but I have no idea of who issued them or how they were issued.

Learn more about the stars featured in this set through this posting I made on the Examiner.com

I’ve actually only handled 13 of these 50 cards myself, the remaining images are courtesy of a gentleman who received the cards from his grandmother in 1950. The cards were originally collected by this gentleman’s uncle in a little Kansas town called Lost Springs. Along with our ornately pink bordered movie cards his uncle collected, and passed down, several pre-1916 baseball cards.

Each card measures approximately 2-1/8″ X 3-1/2″ and as to the decided upon date of 1915, I put together clues found within the text of each of the 13 different cards acquired. Most concrete are the examples of Maurice Costello, on whose card it is mentioned “with Vitagraph seven years.” Well, Costello joined Vitagraph in 1907 and left in 1915. Combining this with information from the Ruth Roland card, “Plays leads for Balboa,” and information borrowed from the IMDb, which states that Ms. Roland left Kalem for Balboa in 1915, we have decided upon the 1915 date.

To back this up there are film titles mentioned on a few of the cards which, once again according to the IMDb, fall before this 1915 date. Examples can be found on the card of Mabel Trunnelle, whose card mentions three film titles: “Maid of Honor” (1913), “Ann” (1913) and “The Man From the West” (Trunnelle not billed in either version on the IMDb, but films date 1912 and 1914). Also, Carlyle Blackwell’s card mentions the title of his debut film, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1910), and Florence La Badie’s card mentions “The Million Dollar Mystery,” a film in which she appears in two different versions, once in 1914 and again in 1918. I’m going to assume the card is referring to the 1914 date.

Skip to Gallery

This page is intended to provide you will all of the possible tools required to view, research, collect, and even purchase the cards in this set, as well as the classic film stars included in this set.

Tags: 1910s, 1915, actors, actresses, blank backs, movie cards, silent stars, Trading Cards