Happy Valentine's Day

This week I thought I would delve into my ephemera collection and share some 19th century German cards. They tend to be more intricate and more richly made than others in the collection.

The congratulatory wording on these cards indicate that they were probably birthday cards, but for this week we'll regard them as valentines (which in a sense they were). This card looks as though it may have been pinned to a wall.

This is one of my favorite items from my entire ephemera collection. It is 19th century printing at its height!

You can read about my ephemera collection under the pointing hand of my side bar, and you can read about the earliest valentines, known as sentiment cards, here.

Early Valentines

Printed valentines became popular in the United States in the 1840s, and the early ones were engraved and hand painted. Today I'll be sharing seven cards from my collection that date from that early period. I've heard dealers refer to these cards, not as valentines, but as "sentiment cards."

If you were to see these cards in person, you would notice that the card stock is heavier and whiter than most other paper of the time, and has a gloss finish. That's because the 1840s saw advancements in papermaking which included the incorporation of white lead into the paper. The result was a luster not unlike fine china. Cards like these, and especially the first of the next three, are sometimes referred to as "porcelain cards."

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