Valentine’s Day cards

#Middlebury #Antiques #Valentines

Valentine’s Day in school in the 1940s and 1950s meant a celebration with cards delivered to a student’s desk or a decorated box on the teacher’s desk. Sweet treats – especially the small, hard candy hearts printed with special messages – also were popular. Like today, there were concerns that some students would not get many, or receive cards that are unkind, or none at all. So stores sold packages of valentines, enough for a class. A popular brand found at the dime store offered a box of “25 Valentine cutouts, all different, One for Teacher, 29c all with envelopes.”

This 1950s cutout card picturing a cup and saucer and the message “We belong together” sold last year for 50 cents.

Handwritten Valentine notes were used in America by the 1740s. In the 1840s, fancy envelopes with paper lace and cut out pictures were made and sold in Massachusetts by Esther Howland. In the 1890s, clever mechanical cards with moving parts were popular. From 1900 to the 1920s, postcards were favored. Today, the 1950s die-cut Valentines sell for less than a dollar to $15. Older, lacy cards can sell from $20 to $100. There are two clubs and shows with information: the National Valentine Collectors Association and the Greeting Card Association.

Q: My mother saved “soakies,” the plastic bottle that held shampoo or bubble bath about 25 years ago. They were shaped like bottles with people or animal heads. She bought them to use the soap and thought they would later become popular collectibles, like milk bottles. Where are they being sold?

A: Soakies were popular as collectibles for a very short period of time in the late 1990s, and a few rare ones did sell for about $100. But the bottles were free and there still are a few used as packaging. Price is determined by supply and demand. There is a big supply and almost no demand. It is a suggested hobby that often doesn’t attract collectors.

Glass milk bottles were not popular with bottle collectors until the rarer earlier bottles became very expensive. Today a colored milk bottle or one with a war slogan or famous dairy name are the only ones selling for more than a few dollars. Collectors also search for the old round cardboard bottle caps, which sell for 25 cents to a few dollars each to go with the bottles.

Current Prices
Current prices are recorded from antiques shows, flea markets, sales and auctions throughout the United States. Prices vary in different locations because of local economic conditions.

Folk art, whimsy, woman, on horse, red shirt, green skirt, articulated, c. 1900, 9 x 8-1/4 inches, $60.
McKee glass, berry bowl, dragon, 1 x 4 inches, $110.
Advertising sign, half horse, half dolphin, horse’s head, dolphin tail, sheet metal, white, red, black, 28 x 32 inches, $350.
Grooming kit, men’s travel set, sterling silver, Gillette razor, brush, soap box, shaving brush and toothbrush holder, W. Kerr, c. 1900, $895.

TIP: Aluminum chairs and other brushed aluminum from the 1950s can be cleaned with a silver polishing paste or a metal cleaner.

For more collecting news, tips and resources, visit www.Kovels.com

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