The International Business Card Museum is dedicated to the memory of Kenneth Erdman, long-time marketing executive, who created the first Business Card Museum in 1995.
A portion of Mr. Erdman's vast collection of business cards is currently part of the IBCM collection thanks to the generosity of his family.
Erdman and McNulty
A portion of Mr. Erdman's vast collection of business cards is currently part of the IBCM collection thanks to the generosity of his family.
Erdman and McNulty
Business Card Museum
By Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press writer
Forget black and white. Roy's Roofing & Spouting of Reading does its business card in gold with a hologram pattern that flashes.
Forget paper. Salem China Co. offers a saucer with a duck painted in the middle and the company name etched on the bottom.
Don't forget the marketing power of free samples. There's the dentist who produces the Floss Card, a piece of plastic with a string of the teeth-cleaning stuff hanging off the bottom. A glass company passes out glass rectangles; an adult exotic store attaches free condoms.
For those slender calling cards most people stuff in wallets or desk drawers, collector Ken Erdman has bestowed another name: art.
Mr. Erdman, a 70-year-old marketer and collector, has founded a museum to honor the business card, a marketing tool he calls one of the most effective but least exploited.
"The business card is probably the least expensive and most often used form of advertising," Mr. Erdman said. "It is kind of an extension of yourself. It's a little bit of giving yourself to someone else."
But is it art? Yes, collectors say, although more than 90 percent of the 4.5 billion cards produced each year are simple black and white paper rectangles.
"These days so many people design their business cards to match the stationery. That's fine if that's all they want their card to do," said Avery N. Pitzak, president of the American Business Card Club in Aurora, Colo. "Because there's so much uniformity out there, it doesn't take much to stand out."
Over the years, Mr. Erdman has collected about 156,000 standouts. Cards with photographs. Die-cut cards. Heat-sensitive cards that change colors. Cards made of glass, leather, china, mouse pads.
"A business card is really a great card when the person who receives it asks the question, 'Oh. May I keep this?"' Mr. Erdman said.
His favorites sit on three shelves in the lobby of his business, a stone building on an out-of-the-way street just outside Philadelphia's upscale Chestnut Hill neighborhood.
There's Tuula Helariulta's card, a folded-over cutout of the front page of the Finnish journalist's newspaper with his name inside.
Writer Murry Raphel of Atlantic City has a folded card containing a pop-up typewriter inside. A page rolls out reading the words: "Am I the type writer you're looking for?"
Redwood Unlimited's business card is wood, shaped like a jagged, circular saw blade. "Putting the bite on pests since 1959," reads Todco Pest Control's card, a thinly sliced wood shaving with gnaw marks at the corner.
And Geoffrey B.W. Little, "Sydney, Australia's smiling policeman," has taken law enforcement to new heights by passing out cards with his grinning likeness and the words: "Smile, you're under arrest!"
Most of the cards are stuffed in drawers and photo albums in an alcove that resembles a doctor's waiting room. The museum has been open by appointment only since January and probably will continue in that capacity because it is so small, Mr. Erdman said. A formal opening is planned for April.
Jennifer McNulty, a Chestnut Hill College business major, was hired by Mr. Erdman a year ago to create the museum and is its honorary curator.
For a year, she sat on the floor and sorted the cards into categories. She discarded all cards that didn't catch her attention in four seconds.
The older ones, calling cards with sprigs of flowers passed out by young men and women seeking matrimony, date to the 1850s. They are folded at the corners to send different messages.
"If cards were turned up in one corner, that meant condolences," she said. "A folded outer corner meant they were going out of town."
Since unofficially opening, the museum has taken about 100 phone calls and letters from collectors offering their masterpieces.
Mr. Erdman hopes the museum will become more than a curiosity. He wants business students and marketing firms to peruse the drawers for ideas.
"We had a gentleman who called and asked whether we wanted to buy Hitler's card," Ms. McNulty said. "I told him he'd do better off selling it to someone who had Nazi paraphernalia."
By Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press writer
Forget black and white. Roy's Roofing & Spouting of Reading does its business card in gold with a hologram pattern that flashes.
Forget paper. Salem China Co. offers a saucer with a duck painted in the middle and the company name etched on the bottom.
Don't forget the marketing power of free samples. There's the dentist who produces the Floss Card, a piece of plastic with a string of the teeth-cleaning stuff hanging off the bottom. A glass company passes out glass rectangles; an adult exotic store attaches free condoms.
For those slender calling cards most people stuff in wallets or desk drawers, collector Ken Erdman has bestowed another name: art.
Mr. Erdman, a 70-year-old marketer and collector, has founded a museum to honor the business card, a marketing tool he calls one of the most effective but least exploited.
"The business card is probably the least expensive and most often used form of advertising," Mr. Erdman said. "It is kind of an extension of yourself. It's a little bit of giving yourself to someone else."
But is it art? Yes, collectors say, although more than 90 percent of the 4.5 billion cards produced each year are simple black and white paper rectangles.
"These days so many people design their business cards to match the stationery. That's fine if that's all they want their card to do," said Avery N. Pitzak, president of the American Business Card Club in Aurora, Colo. "Because there's so much uniformity out there, it doesn't take much to stand out."
Over the years, Mr. Erdman has collected about 156,000 standouts. Cards with photographs. Die-cut cards. Heat-sensitive cards that change colors. Cards made of glass, leather, china, mouse pads.
"A business card is really a great card when the person who receives it asks the question, 'Oh. May I keep this?"' Mr. Erdman said.
His favorites sit on three shelves in the lobby of his business, a stone building on an out-of-the-way street just outside Philadelphia's upscale Chestnut Hill neighborhood.
There's Tuula Helariulta's card, a folded-over cutout of the front page of the Finnish journalist's newspaper with his name inside.
Writer Murry Raphel of Atlantic City has a folded card containing a pop-up typewriter inside. A page rolls out reading the words: "Am I the type writer you're looking for?"
Redwood Unlimited's business card is wood, shaped like a jagged, circular saw blade. "Putting the bite on pests since 1959," reads Todco Pest Control's card, a thinly sliced wood shaving with gnaw marks at the corner.
And Geoffrey B.W. Little, "Sydney, Australia's smiling policeman," has taken law enforcement to new heights by passing out cards with his grinning likeness and the words: "Smile, you're under arrest!"
Most of the cards are stuffed in drawers and photo albums in an alcove that resembles a doctor's waiting room. The museum has been open by appointment only since January and probably will continue in that capacity because it is so small, Mr. Erdman said. A formal opening is planned for April.
Jennifer McNulty, a Chestnut Hill College business major, was hired by Mr. Erdman a year ago to create the museum and is its honorary curator.
For a year, she sat on the floor and sorted the cards into categories. She discarded all cards that didn't catch her attention in four seconds.
The older ones, calling cards with sprigs of flowers passed out by young men and women seeking matrimony, date to the 1850s. They are folded at the corners to send different messages.
"If cards were turned up in one corner, that meant condolences," she said. "A folded outer corner meant they were going out of town."
Since unofficially opening, the museum has taken about 100 phone calls and letters from collectors offering their masterpieces.
Mr. Erdman hopes the museum will become more than a curiosity. He wants business students and marketing firms to peruse the drawers for ideas.
"We had a gentleman who called and asked whether we wanted to buy Hitler's card," Ms. McNulty said. "I told him he'd do better off selling it to someone who had Nazi paraphernalia."