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Thursday, October 6, 2011

Lardent Cards






Quite collectable, Lardent cards are often found as bookmarks in old publications of the Watch Tower Society when they become available. They were also used to send messages, so often contain interesting personal information on the reverse sides.

Frederick Jethro Lardent was born in 1885 and lived until 1970. He was an optician by profession, and wrote articles for medical magazines on occasion. He produced two sets of cards – one with the prefix L (obviously for Lardent) which ran to nearly 200 different copies, and one with the prefix F (for Frederick) which were more photographic in nature.

His cards were circulated by all strands of Bible Student opinion until the mid to late-1920s. Then, as the Daily Heavenly Manna was phased out along with other changes, his cards were more circulated by those who left the Society. By 1931 he was on the speaker’s list for a breakaway movement in Britain. He published several anthologies of his cards, such as The Call of the Bride and Comforted of God. He also published a journal which folded about 1941.

In his will he left his printing blocks to Albert Hudson. Hudson, who once described Lardent’s efforts as having “a sublime disregard for copyright” promptly dumped them. This adds a bit to the scarcity value of the product for collectors.

5 comments:

jerome said...

You can download quite a few of the images from:

http://www.archive.org/details/BibleStudentLardentCards

Unknown said...

i have a collection of some of the cards (all "L" prefix); I can not find ANY with the F prefix though. Do you know why?

jerome said...

Hi Sandy

Well, some do exist. I have two - F2 (It is Your Faith) and F-13 (Love one another as I have loved you). Unlike the L series which are generally matt finish, these two have a glossy finish. I have no idea how many the series ran to.

Unknown said...

I have some extras for trade for other Lardent cards if someone collects these. Please let me know if you want any or know of anyone who may have some I can rade with.
Andrew.

JB said...

And anything known about A. H. Moore of Columbus and postcards from 1912-1913?