I just acquired an example of the Young Folks Painting Book and, since it appears that your DB entry doesn’t have images of all the book’s pages, I’ve gone ahead and scanned mine in case you’d care to add the additional images to your DB.
Also of interest to Tuck collectors, I hope, is the fact that this book was sent out as a mail-order premium by the Arbuckle Brothers Coffee Company, which happens to intersect with my own collecting interests. Additional information about that Arbuckle connection follows the images, below.
Beginning in the mid-1890s, Arbuckles’ Coffee began offering various and sundry items to their customers as mail-order premiums. This little book was Item No. 12 (out of 22) on a premium list than was valid through May 31, 1896.
As you can see, all that was required for a customer to receive the book was to send in a 2-cent stamp and 2 signatures cut from packages of Arbuckles’ Coffee, which served as “proofs of purchase”. It was mailed out in a simple envelope like the one below.
I know that not all collectors are interested in the history behind an item, but personally I find such tidbits fascinating. Now, how big a role Arbuckles’ actually played in the distribution of this book, I have no idea, but Arbuckles’ was the largest selling brand of coffee in the U.S. at that time, and supposedly some serious coffee drinkers practically furnished their entire homes from Arbuckles’ premium items over the years!
By the way, this wasn’t the only Tuck book that appeared in the Arbuckle premium lists. I’ll try to provide information on the others in a subsequent post in a day or so.