Size: 3" x 5"
Copyrighted: 1889
Lithographer: Donaldson Bros.

This is a series of 50 cards, numbered from 51 to 100 on the back of each card at the top center. It was issued concurrently with the Zoological series which bore the numbers 1 to 50. (Since the Zoological series wasn't copyrighted until 1890, I presume that this series wasn't actually issued until that year, as well, even though it bears the 1889 copyright date.)

The front of each card is a multi-colored illustration, in a horizontal format, which includes a map of one of 50 "principal" countries (or regions) of the world along with various vignettes depicting activities, industries, products, and/or scenery that the country was known for.

The back of each card contains identical text, in a vertical format printed in a shade of blue (most commonly), with the left side containing the standard "Grind Your Coffee At Home" explaining the benefits of do-it-yourself coffee grinding, and the right side explaining what the series represents. Variations exist in the use of "Arbuckle's" vs. "Arbuckles'" (note position of apostrophe) and in the color of the text. (See examples.)

Variations also exist in the placement, orientation, and/or prominence, of the "COPYRIGHT" text which appears on the front of each card. Apparently, in this series at least, this text was not an integral part of the design and was added to the cards in a separate printing step. I am currently aware of cards for 19 countries which show significant variations (i.e., more than simple misalignment). In the case of all but Siam, these varieties coincide with the "Arbuckle's"/"Arbuckles'" variation (see above). Detailed examples are shown on the pages for those cards which exhibit these variations.

These cards were also issued in an album format as "Arbuckles' Illustrated Atlas of Fifty Principal Nations of the World", available from the company as a mail-order premium and "cards" cut from this album may sometimes be found. They are easily identifiable since the text on the back of the "card" doesn't match the illustration on the front. (BEWARE: These pieces of scrap are frequently offered for sale by unscrupulous dealers who choose to ignore their provenance and blithely attempt to pass them off as actual trade cards or, even worse, as rare "errors".)