Friday, January 2, 2009

Hallmark Cards

Earlier this week, I got the chance to dig some stuff out of an old trunk here in the house that for years had been too hard to get to. It wasn't full of fabulous vintage things, as I had hoped - but I did find a few treasures. I simply never tire of vintage greeting cards, and a number of the ones I found that day were Hallmark cards from the mid-to-late 1930's. These were mostly given by my in-laws to each other over the course of a few years. The one at top left, below, opens up after four turns to be a poster-size of 19 by 23 inches! That's a big card. Quite a few have Scottie dogs on them.
Cute characters - including one with Popeye! (Stated on the back that he was used with permission of King Features Syndicate) Cute animals were also very popular!
Four more here - such sweet artwork by the many talented artists who worked for Hallmark. The bears and the dog look as though they could have been drawn by the same person.
I think I probably bought this book, below, in 1988 when it came out. In this lovely volume by Ellen Stern, she writes about the history of the company. Some of my cards are marked Hall Brothers Inc. - before they were known as Hallmark.
There are more than 750 Hallmark Cards featured in color in this book, spanning seven decades of their delightful greeting cards. I am a Hallmark fan -I've written about it before. I'm happy we have a store in our town, I always enjoy The Hallmark Hall Of Fame movies (and even the commercials!) on TV, I have LOTS of their ornaments, I can only WISH that we got the Hallmark Channel, and I also love their magazine. There, I think I've said it all!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooh! Love those kitties! I've been admiring vintage children's greeting cards for months now and I finally odred a bunch with my Christmas money. The first batch came in today! Yay!

I love your blog, Heidi!

~ Hearts ~

The Viewliner Limited said...

The Wooden Shoe card is awesome. I can relate because I'm Dutch.

Heidi Ann said...

I'm not Dutch - but I thought it was pretty darned cute , too! I mean, with a name like Heidi...
and I do have my Dutch shoe collection, after all! (Too bad that card has some residue from the stupid old glue on the envelope flap. If only our relatives knew that the envelopes shouldn't have been stored with the cards! Oh, well.)

Twyla and Lindsey said...

I love your cards! Hallmark really is the best! Your book looks really neat! I will have to look for that.
I feel guilty, We have the Hallmark channel and I never think to watch it.
Hope you had a wonderful New Year's day!
Lindsey

yosemite faith said...

well heidi ho i will see if this works. if i can ever get back into what was my parents cottage my mom had saved lots of cards. my dad always bought cards for all occasions and just because. i saved them when i was going thru stuff but who knows now that it is my brothers?

Tina Dawn said...

I love the wooden shoe card. Does your Hallmark book have any cards with nasturtiums on them? Love T

The Thriftaholic (Leilani) said...

I love the scottie dog valentine-- do you have a larger scan of it? :)