Here’s when the Christmas season really gets underway: one wintry day, amongst the deluge of bills and ads, your daily mail coughs up something out of the ordinary. Maybe it’s an envelope dotted with stenciled snowflakes. Maybe there’s a grinning snowman on an address label. But you know, even before opening it, exactly what you’ve received. It’s your first Christmas card. Let the holidays begin!

Commercially-produced Christmas cards first came to us courtesy of Sir Henry Cole, director of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.

Cole had a tradition of sending handwritten holiday greetings to family and friends, but by 1843 the list was lengthy. Inspiration struck: he commissioned John Calcott Horsley, a member of the Royal Academy, to create a card that could be lithographed and colored by hand. “Extras” in the initial printing of 1,000 were then made available for sale to the general public.

Horsley’s 3” x 5” card illustrated three scenes: A family enjoying a holiday toast filled the central panel; the side panels featured folks performing charitable acts. The cards were roundly condemned, however, because one figure shown sipping wine in the central panel was a child. They were quickly withdrawn from the market; today, only about a dozen remain.

Over the next several years, the custom of card exchange grew in popularity, although initially only the wealthy could afford them. Then, thanks to the use of less costly paper and the development of the steam printing press, production costs plummeted. And, thanks to England’s Postal Act of 1840, even mailing a Christmas card was extremely affordable: postage was just a penny to anywhere in the United Kingdom.

In the United States, those sending “season’s greetings” had to make do with imported cards until 1875. That’s when Louis Prang, the “Father of the American Christmas Card,” began to sell them domestically. Prang’s “chromos” utilized zinc plates, which proved much less expensive than previous methods of color printing. The Christmas card tradition caught on here just as quickly as it had overseas; by the 1880s, Prang produced nearly five million cards annually.

By the 1920s, the Christmas card thematic pattern had become well-established, offering up a unique blend of nostalgia, sentiment, and season-specific visuals. Holiday wishes became particularly poignant during World War II, as greetings were sent to those overseas, keeping morale high, both at home and abroad.

Donald-Brian Johnson is the co-author of numerous Schiffer books on design and collectibles, including “Postwar Pop,” a collection of his columns. Please address inquiries to: donaldbrian@msn.com

Downbeat magazine called them “the discs that sparkle with color.” Gimbel’s trumpeted their “new and wonderful” arrival with a full-page ad in The New York Herald Tribune. Sears, Roebuck touted them as “amazing—with some of the most sensational improvements ever made in the history of phonograph records!”

The subject of all the talk? Vogue picture records, those illustrated musical curiosities that have retained a unique appeal for over 75 years. Picture discs preceded Vogue, with Noel Coward, Paul Whiteman, and the cast of Music in the Air all depicted on records of the 1920s and ‘30s. They’ve also continued into the present, with vinyl visuals devoted to Elvis, the Beatles, and even Snow White. Vogue, however, brought picture records to the forefront.

Although the company’s heyday was brief, (from early 1946 through mid-1947), the Vogue catalog serves as a colorful time capsule of the post-World War II era. While Billboard dismissed Vogue illustrations as “strictly of the coal company calendar type,” the scenes depicted, (often romantic, patriotic, or humorous), retain a freshness and optimism totally in keeping with the spirit of mid-1940s America.

The visionary behind Vogue was 29-year-old Tom Saffady, president of Detroit’s Sav-Way Industries. Saffady’s dream: an “unbreakable” picture record, replacing easily-shattered shellac discs. Each 10-inch Vogue 78 had an interior aluminum core bonded to Sav-Way’s transparent Vinylite plastic. In addition to increasing durability, the aluminum core also made the records warp-proof, while the plastic reduced surface and needle noise.

All production, except label printing, was centered at Vogue’s Detroit plant. A Saffady-invented automatic record pressing carousel dramatically sped up record production, with discs stamped out some 80 times faster than before. There was also a complete in-house recording studio, plus a nearby Saffady-owned nightclub, where Vogue acts could perform when not busy cutting records for the label.

Donald-Brian Johnson is the co-author of numerous Schiffer books on design and collectibles, including “Postwar Pop,” a collection of his columns. Please address inquiries to: donaldbrian@msn.com

Admit it: those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer are OVER. Autumn’s here. Time to rinse out the swimsuits, deflate the floaties, and figure out what to do with that beach bag bulging with souvenir sea shells. Hmmm...
Well, you could always make something.

No kidding. Items made entirely of shells, covered with shells, or just dotted with the occasional accent shell, have been tops as summery souvenirs since at least the 1700s. In 1703, a London woman offered her services as an instructor in the delicate art of “shell work in flowers, sconces, and rocks.” Mary Granville Delany, another turn-of-the-18th-century Londoner, was renowned for her challenging shell projects. Among them: a chapel ceiling, with shells woven into a pattern resembling flower garlands. The fascination with shell craft as a refined art form continued well into the Victorian era. The 1876 guide “Ladies’ Fancy Work” offered detailed instructions (plus glue recipes) for using shells to form “exquisitely beautiful articles of adornment for parlor or dressing table.” As one British publication of the time put it, shells were “so brightly clean, so ornamental to a boudoir” that shell craft was a pursuit “peculiarly suited to the ladies.”

Tell that to the Marines. During the 1800s, many seafaring men brought “sailor’s valentines” to the girls back home. These octagonal wooden boxes had covers decorated with elaborate shell designs. Appropriate sentiments (e.g., “To My Sweetheart”), were picked out in shells of a contrasting color. Romantic legend has it that, in their downtime, these water-weary voyagers not only carved the boxes, but also came up with their intricate shell-patterned lids. Just another way of whiling away the hours between monsoons.

A more likely (if less sigh-inducing) theory is that even the Ancient Mariner, after spending months at sea, knew better than to return to his sweetheart empty-handed. Last-minute peace offerings were called for, and the Caribbean craftsmen of Barbados were happy to oblige. The labels found on many “sailor’s valentines” list their actual source as “Native Manufacturers in Fancy Work.”

By the mid-20th century, sailors were no longer crafting (or at any rate purchasing) their valentines, and other forms of shell art had become a bit less refined. Now, any gift shop claiming even the slightest proximity to water wasn’t complete without a shellcraft selection. Vacationers loved shell souvenirs. They were fun to look at, and cleverly made. They were inexpensive, so no need to shell out a bundle. And best of all, travelers could take them home and display them on the mantel. It was an unobtrusive way of telling the neighbors, “Guess where WE went this summer?”

Donald-Brian Johnson is the co-author of numerous Schiffer books on design and collectibles, including “Postwar Pop,” a collection of his columns. Please address inquiries to: donaldbrian@msn.com

“Hey there, fella! Step right up and take yer chance! Knock down the milk bottles, and win a kewpie for your girlie! All it takes is one thin dime!”

Lines like that have been circulating around carnivals for years... and over those years, lots of fellas have been falling for it. Usually, it took plenty more than “one thin dime” to knock over those bottles, but eventually, down they went. The determined, now dimeless, player (or more likely, his “girlie”), proceeded merrily down the midway, the proud possessor of a chalk-ware “kewpie doll.”

While oversized stuffed animals rule the fairground roost today, it wasn’t always so. During the heyday of traveling carnivals, from the Depression years of the 1930s well into the 1950s, chalkware figurines were the sought-after prizes in games of chance. Originally called “kewpie dolls,” after the Rose O’Neil impish bald-headed cherubs which populated their ranks, chalkware characters actually came in many guises. There were quaint animals, from piggy bank pigs to pipe-smoking chimps … jolly clowns and seductive “sweater girls”… patriotic portrayals of George Washington and Native Americans… plus pop-culture favorites, ranging from the Lone Ranger to the Easter Bunny.

Carnival-goers loved chalkware figurines because they were colorful and fun. Carnival operators loved them because they were inexpensive: a 1940 catalog, from novelty supplier Gellman Bros. of Minneapolis, listed a ‘Popeye” chalk lookalike for 13 cents (or just a few pennies over that “one thin dime”).

Before wending its way to the midway, chalkware had occupied a loftier spot. Dur-ing the 1800s and early 1900s, there were those who admired Staffordshire por-celain figurines, but were unable to afford them. Staffordshire-like chalk reproductions of elegant couples and docile animals proved an acceptable substitute. And, since chalk-ware was essentially molded plaster of Paris, cold-painted in watercolors or oils, the results fit almost every budget (Today, those early figurines, attributed to the Pennsylvania Dutch, are as sought-after as their porcelain predecessors).

Donald-Brian Johnson is the co-author of numerous Schiffer books on design and collectibles, including “Postwar Pop,” a collection of his columns. Please address inquiries to: donaldbrian@msn.com