This article features a Noble & Cooley advertising cover from my collection dated 1889. Regular readers of this blog know that while I mostly write about stamps, from time to time I also like to share a musical cover from my collection. For example, here is an article about an advertising cover from the Chickering piano company of Boston. Another example is this article featuring an advertising cover for a music dealer in Hagerstown, MD.
Like other types of businesses, music publishers, dealers, and manufacturers, took advantage of every possible avenue to market their products. The advent of envelopes (the first U.S. patent dates from 1849) brought about the idea to decorate them with logos and eye-catching designs. Inevitably, businesses saw this as an important way to advertise their products. In philatelic terms, these are advertising covers. While I really enjoy nineteenth and early twentieth century examples, today, when such decorated envelopes arrive in my mailbox I tend to dismiss them as “junk mail.”
The Cover
The cover is pretty wonderful. In the upper right hand corner is a Washington three-cent stamp from the American Bank Note Company Great Americans series made between 1881 and 1888. On the upper left hand side of the envelop is a stack of five military drums, with the largest drum on the bottom with ever smaller drums on top. In the upper center of the envelope is the name: NOBLE & COOLEY, Manufacturers of Drums. Along with other text including addresses, products, etc. The addressee is Mrs. E. M. Stowe of Stockton, California.
The Recipient
Fortunately, it is possible to learn quite a bit about the recipient of this cover from An Illustrated History of San Joaquin County, California (1890). Below is the passage from this book:
The text continues on the following page:
Elizabeth died on October 22, 1911 at the age of 86.
Noble & Cooley
The wonderful cover is from the Noble & Cooley Company of Granville Corners, Massachusetts. The farmer Silas Noble began making toy drums at his kitchen table to give as Christmas presents in 1854. Soon, he was joined by his friend James Cooley to make this small enterprise into a company. Although they began by making a few hundred toy drums each year, they began to build professional instruments for militias and the U. S. military. They were an important supplier of instruments to the Union army during the Civil War.
from the American Civil War
Field Drums Blog
Following the War, the small drum shop employed 17 people. They continued to produce both professional grade military side drums as well as toy drums and, later, drum sets through most of the twentieth century.
Remarkably, this company is still in business today and run by descendants of the founders. You can see some of their beautiful contemporary drums on their website.
Interestingly, by the 1980s, the traditional business model building toy drums was no longer working. A great-great-great grandson of James Cooley, Jay Jones, decided to target the highest end of the professional drum market, the drums used by drum set players in popular music. They company began building extremely high quality professional grade drums. Soon, they realized that it was better to focus even further, and they stopped making drum sets, specializing solely in the creation of the most desirable snare drums. Their success essentially invented the custom drum shop and many others have followed their lead.
