Working from a database of over 1,700 printed circulars, this article explores the significance of the commercial innovations that took place during the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Studying the chronology of the introduction of printed circulars and their use in mercantile practices, we demonstrate that commercial innovation can be interpreted as the mobilization of new tools and old practices to solve the traditional problems of long-distance trade, in a context where circulars were used to communicate information on trade houses, to search for new commercial partners, and to display one's socioprofessional identity.
