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A Time Honoured Tradition

In the early 1800s paper Valentines had become so popular that they started being commercially produced; but it was the dawn of the penny post in 1840 that caused an explosion in popularity and by 1841 over 400,000 Valentines had been posted throughout England. The Victorians were well and truly gripped by this amorous craze and ornate cards with ribbons and lace were the height of fashion. This lovely example below dates from around 1910 and is a Prussian chromolitho embossed kaleidoscope card by Alfred Stiebel & Co. This card formed part of the David May Collection

1,200 theatre costumes were up for grabs in our recent General Sale on 2nd February 2010 which attracted quite a buzz.