May I Become the Proud Bird Who Shall Accompany You?

Thanks! It's hard to tell how seriously they were taken and who exactly used them. Some card companies listed acquaintance cards in the same sales circulars that they sent out for calling cards. In contrast to the somewhat more formal calling cards, it seems that acquaintance cards were simply an amusing way to break the ice.

Check out, for instance, "Funny Flirtation Cards," a short story by Frank Bellew that appeared in Harper's Young People: An Illustrated Weekly, Jan. 4, 1881, p. 160. Charley Sparks is the "sunshiny young fellow" in the story who's described as the kind of boy who usually has "something new in the way of a puzzle, or a riddle, or a notion of some sort wherewith to amuse his friends." Although Charlie's cards are homemade and somewhat different than the usual acquaintance cards (the illustrations accompanying the article make them look like printed cards, however), I'd imagine that young gents of the time used printed acquaintance cards in a manner similar to the way Charlie does in the story.

For another perspective, see the Encyclopedia of Ephemera's entry on acquaintance cards.