=ECONOMICAL ENGRAVING=

The economically inclined can have several varieties of cards printed from one plate.  The cards would vary somewhat in size in order to “center” the wording.

Example: 

The plate: 

Mr. and Mrs. Gilding
Miss Gilding

00 FIFTH AVENUE
GOLDEN HALL

may be printed.

Miss Gilding’s name should never appear on a card with both her mother’s and father’s, so her name being out of line under the “Mr. and Mrs.” engraving makes no difference.

or

Mr. and Mrs. Gilding

GOLDEN HALL

or

Mrs. Gilding
Miss Gilding

00 FIFTH AVENUE

or

Mrs. Gilding

GOLDEN HALL

The personal card is in a measure an index of one’s character.  A fantastic or garish note in the type effect, in the quality or shape of the card, betrays a lack of taste in the owner of the card.

It is not customary for a married man to have a club address on his card, and it would be serviceable only in giving a card of introduction to a business acquaintance, under social rather than business circumstances, or in paying a formal call upon a political or business associate.  Unmarried men often use no other address than that of a club; especially if they live in bachelor’s quarters, but young men who live at home use their home address.

=CORRECT NAMES AND TITLES=

To be impeccably correct, initials should not be engraved on a visiting card.  A gentleman’s card should read:  Mr. John Hunter Titherington Smith, but since names are sometimes awkwardly long, and it is the American custom to cling to each and every one given in baptism, he asserts his possessions by representing each one with an initial, and engraves his cards Mr. John H.T.  Smith, or Mr. J.H.  Titherington Smith, as suits his fancy.  So, although, according to high authorities, he should drop a name or two and be Mr. Hunter Smith, or Mr. Titherington Smith, it is very likely that to the end of time the American man, and necessarily his wife, who must use the name as he does, will go on cherishing initials.

And a widow no less than a married woman should always continue to use her husband’s Christian name, or his name and another initial, engraved on her cards.  She is Mrs. John Hunter Titherington Smith, or, to compromise, Mrs. J.H.  Titherington Smith, but she is never Mrs. Sarah Smith; at least not anywhere in good society.  In business and in legal matters a woman is necessarily addressed by her own Christian name, because she uses it in her signature.  But no one should ever address an envelope, except from a bank or a lawyer’s office, “Mrs. Sarah Smith.”  When a widow’s son, who has the name of his father, marries, the widow has Sr. added to her own name, or if she is the “head” of the family, she very often omits all Christian names, and has her card engraved “Mrs. Smith,” and the son’s wife calls herself Mrs. John Hunter Smith.  Smith is not a very good name as an example, since no one could very well claim the distinction of being the Mrs. Smith.  It, however, illustrates the point.