1895 Hamlins Wizard Oil Company, Chicago, IL, Unsevered Reply Card UY1

This is an un-severed, double-sided “Reply Postal Card” from November 1895, UY1. The top section features a printed 1-cent stamp depicting General Ulysses S. Grant, along with a formalized business notice from the Hamlins Wizard Oil Company, then located at 21 La Salle Street in Chicago, Illinois. The bottom section contains an order form intended for merchants to order proprietary patent medicines, paired with an address side handwritten to a Dr. C. F. North at 6206 Wentworth Avenue in Chicago.

The sender, Hamlins Wizard Oil Co., was a prominent 19th-century patent medicine manufacturer founded in 1861 by former magician John Austin Hamlin and his brother Lysander. Their flagship product, Wizard Oil, was a highly alcoholic liniment containing camphor, chloroform, ammonia, and turpentine that was aggressively marketed as a cure-all for ailments ranging from rheumatism to cancer. This specific card functions as a B2B marketing promotion, offering merchants free customized songbooks and advertising “Counter Wrappers” if they submit an order for a dozen small or large bottles of their remedies.