These are cool. I know that Millais (the same man who painted Ophelia) did a lot of these for Pears soap. Its sad that he sort of "sold out" to work in that field, and not be as avant-garde in his productions as he was in his "capital A" Art, but its great that so much of these stuff has survived.
When I was travelling some time ago, there was an exhibition in an art gallery of contemporary advertising that was on the level of institutional art from a technical perspective. It was an interesting walk through the intersection of captialism and Art.
Thanks for sharing this!
RE: Antique Advertising cards