PBA Galleries

The Early American Reward of Merit Collection, put together over many years by the late Calvin P. Otto of Vermont, Virginia and Colorado. Consisting of approximately 350 individual rewards from the 1820’s through the Victorian era, housed in two binders in rough chronological order. The collection begins with 9 hand done rewards in ink and watercolor, from the 1810 to 1830 period, followed by approximately 100 rewards printed in early letterpress with woodcut or copperplate engravings from the period of 1820 to 1850. Following that are rewards that were printed from woodblocks and largely hand colored, and then the smaller format of rewards printed on coated stock with hand coloring. Included are 3 variants of the baseball reward pictured on page 180 of Malpa & Fenn, Rewards of Merit, published by The Ephemera Society of America, (a copy of which is included with the lot). 2 copper engraved rewards for NY Public Schools; 8 packets of multiple rewards in their original printed envelopes, as sold by stationers of the period, rare thus; an 11 x 19” 4 page salesman’s sample folder with prices, advertising rewards and other cards. Also included are 4 early English rewards or Premiums from Trinity college in Dublin and the earliest, a Premium dated 1766. The second binder consists of the later more common colorful chromolithographed cards, and many of the smaller coated-stock cards from the 1860 period.

Rewards of Merit were given out by teachers to students to “reward” them for excellence in their schoolwork, approbation and attendance at small country schools and academies. They were cherished by students and carefully saved and put away. In some cases they took the places of formal report cards, and the hand done rewards were written out and colored by their teachers, many who could not afford to buy “store bought” cards. These have become desirable works of American Folk Art. Calvin Otto was a member of the British Ephemera Society and one of the founders and first president of the Ephemera Society of America, He was a fixture at East Coast paper and antique shows for years and collected paper & ephemera avidly.