Visiting card

A visiting card is a small paper card with a person's name on it. They were used to let someone know that another person had come to their home for a visit. Some visiting cards had just a name on them. Some also had images.

Visiting cards are not used as much as they used to be. Business cards are now used the way visiting cards used to be used.

• Examples of visiting cards
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  A plain visiting card with only a name (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
• 
  A visiting card showing and address and the day that visitors are welcome to visit the card holder
• 
  The visiting card of Johann van Beethoven, brother of Ludwig van Beethoven
• 
  Visiting card of Wilhelm II of Germany
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  Visiting card of Leopold Ernst von Firmian, cardinal bishop of Passau

Before the industrialization visiting cards were hand made. Since the end of the 19th century production has become more and more automated.

A Oscar Friedheim card cutting and scoring machine from 1889, capable of producing 100,000 visiting cards a day