Calling-card cases

Once social signifiers of the 1800s, these ornate boxes have found new élan as business-card holders... and ice-breakers, says Beatrice Aidin

During the reign of Queen Victoria, calling cards and the formalities around them became as indicative of social standing as an entry in Debrett’s. But it is the cases that carried these social signifiers that are currently resurging in popularity and value, not only as collectables prized for their craftsmanship and beauty, but also because they are sometimes put to very modern use – as business-card holders.

Victorian silver case, sold for £3,500 at Christie’s | Image: © Christie’s Images

“I have customers who buy cases and have their cards specially cut to fit,” says Daniel Bexfield, a specialist dealer in London. With cases measuring around 10cm x 7cm with a thickness of about 1cm, most have a horizontal hinged or slip-top lid, but some open like a fan or envelope. Others have even been made with a small pencil and notebook for addresses – details that can increase their worth. Bexfield’s current stock includes one such case, a Victorian silver card case/ notebook (£2,450) with a troika design in Russian papier-mâché (and its original owner’s London addresses to call upon).

Although the tradition of leaving a calling card began at the turn of the 19th century, the fashion for chic cases really took off in the 1840s. However, their popularity lasted through to the 1930s: at Christie’s New York in 2012, a 1930s Cartier French-jade card case, embellished with a platinum, ruby and diamond clasp, sold for $16,250, far exceeding its $4,000 to $6,000 estimate.

Victorian silver and papier-mâché case, £2,450, from Daniel Bexfield Antiques | Image: Daniel Bexfield Antiques

Calling-card cases can be made out of everything from gold, agate or leather to sharkskin or wood. But rare designs, mint condition and refined provenance make surviving examples reach top prices. A Fabergé Imperial Romanov enamel card case with gold and seed pearls (1899-1903) sold at Sotheby’s in 2009 for £181,250, which was 15 times the highest estimate; it was made for the Empress Maria Feodorovna, the wife of Emperor Paul I of Russia.  

Chinese carved-ivory case from Wladimir Herman’s private collection | Image: JTFoto.dk

British silver cases also command a premium and can be a more practical choice, being more robust than those in ivory or mother-of-pearl. “The most valuable are known as ‘castle tops’, as they have an engraved or stamped image of a castle or monument in high relief,” says Alexis Butcher, director of silver at Lawrences Auctioneers in Somerset. They were especially popular as souvenirs in the late 1830s, and it’s not surprising that “common designs are Windsor Castle and Abbotsford, the Scottish home of Sir Walter Scott”, says Michael Prevezer, head of the silver department at Christie’s South Kensington. “But it is the value of the rarer castle tops that is on the up.”

Silver, enamel, jewel and bead aide-mémoire case, $10,500, from McNally Antiques

An auction that gripped collectors in 2005 was of a very rare, if not inimitable, case with an engraving of Bevis Marks, the oldest synagogue in Britain, made in 1845 by master craftsman Nathaniel Mills of Birmingham. It sold at Newbury auctioneers Dreweatt Neate for £8,000 – and would be worth much more today.

Mills is not the only significant name based in Birmingham’s jewellery quarter; other respected makers in this creative hub include Alfred Taylor, George Unite, Taylor & Perry and Edward Smith. At a specialist Christie’s sale in March, an 1860 card case by Alfred Taylor, the front chased with a relief of Buckingham Palace, trebled its estimate, selling for £3,500. An outlier is Henry Wilkinson of Sheffield; his 1851 case with an image of a lady outside Norton Hall, Yorkshire, reached £4,750 at the same auction, far exceeding the £1,000 to £1,500 estimate. More than the specific maker, however, it is intricacy, design choice and condition that push up value, says Bexford.

Due to Victorian trading links between the UK and the Orient, there is also a rich array of Japanese and Chinese card cases made of delicately carved ivory, which were exported to meet British demand. “Some examples of Chinese carved-ivory cases can now fetch several thousand pounds at auction due to rarity, craftsmanship and a new market of avid Chinese collectors,” says Marco Carvalho of London calling- card-case specialists HL & HL Antiquities, whose current stock of over 500 includes a Cantonese ivory card case (c1880) for £400.

Americans began using calling cards around the same time as the Victorians, and cases were produced mainly on the East Coast. “The sought-after cases were made by Tiffany & Co in New York, William B Kerr of Newark and Gorham Corporation of Providence,” says Connie McNally of McNally Antiques in Rancho Santa Fe, California, who is not only a dealer but uses one herself. “I paid $850 for a French 1850s case in silver with a ruby and have my cards cut smaller for it.” She adds, “I have a beaded, enamelled and jewelled silver Russian case, made by Antip Kuzmichev for Tiffany & Co in 1894, for sale at $10,500. You wouldn’t want to throw that in your handbag.”

Steven Cardozo, a New York lawyer who has six high-value cases, says: “I like using them for their original purpose. It’s a nice surprise when you pull out a business card from an antique case. People remember you.” Such is the appeal for many of today’s collectors. “Clients tell me they love getting their case out, and often end up talking about its history,” says Bexfield. McNally has also identified a more novel 21st-century use. “I see women in California using a vintage card case to hold a credit card.”

Understandably, serial collectors prize their cases as precious objets d’art. Retired theatre director Wladimir Herman, who lives in Copenhagen, started his collection in 1999, and it now amounts to over 530. He prizes his eight Russian card cases – one from the workshops of Lukutin – most highly. “Technically, the paint and lacquerwork is fantastic,” he says. Meanwhile, UK-based David Mitchinson, head of collections and exhibitions at the Henry Moore Foundation, has a private collection of over 700 cases. To display them he has a system of rotation. “I have a magnificent display cabinet that is only eight inches deep, probably from an apothecary.” Would he ever use one of his antique cases to carry business cards? “Never.”