07 October, 2007

More Greeting Postcards

Here are some other "greeting cards" I have in my collection, which I all bought in 1997. Other than Postcard 7 which is by Easter Morning Postcard, all cards are by Hallmark.


Postcard 1: "Are you a chocoholic?"

The bottom part is not a tear, that's how the postcard really looks like. At the back of the card:

ANSWERS: If you answered "yes" to ANY of these questions, you are, indeed, a chocoholic, and should immediately turn over your entire chocolate stash to the sender of this card, who has only your best interests at heart.


Postcard 2: "I'll loan my body to anyone who will exercise it for me."


Postcard 3: "I think I need a hug....



Postcard 4: "Please Don't Write!"


Postcard 5: "Now that I have you attention"


Postcard 6: "No Special Occasion..."


Postcard 7: "Why me?"


Postcard 8: "Question: Why do my toes wiggle every time I think of you?"

05 October, 2007

More Greeting Postcards - Postcards With Sayings

These are the only Hallmark greeting cards with sayings in my collection.


"Today means boundless and inexhaustible eternity. Months and years and all periods of time are concepts of men, who gauge everything by number; but the true name of eternity is Today."
- Philo


"For great is his love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD"
- Psalm 117:1-2 NIV


"The Love which moves the sun and the other stars."
(L'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle.)
Canto XXXIII, line 145 (last line)
- Dante Alighieri

I couldn't find to whom I can quote the sayings on these cards.

Postcard 4: "Imagination creates a dream. Faith turns it into a reality."


Postcard 5: "Every day in the Lord is a day of new beginnings."

Modern Greeting Postcards - Andrew Brownsword Postcard Collection

These were also among my first postcards. It was easier for me to research who Andrew Brownsword is and about the collection. However, I found no description about the bears nor the Forever Friends.

Born Andrew Douglas Brownsword, he started the Andrew Brownsword Collection, a publishing business founded in Bath in 1971. Brownsword started by selling greeting cards, before developing the Forever Friends teddy bear genre with artist Deborah Jones in Reading, Berkshire in the early 1980s:

"I wanted to develop a teddy bear that appealed to adults as well as children. I based Forever Friends specifically on the teddy bear that Sebastian Flyte carried around in Brideshead Revisited. It became the bear found in the attic."

The first Forever Friends bears were available in the shops in February 1987. The Andrew Brownsword Collection were later acquired by Hallmark Cards in 1994.

Forever Friends Postcard 1

Forever Friends Postcard 2

04 October, 2007

Modern Greeting Postcards - Freechese Company

My first postcards were actually these greetings cards, which I bought in 1997. Unfortunately I haven't seen other cards being sold nor stores that still sell them this past few years.

At the back of the postcard was the "supposedly" name of the manufacturer of the postcard, Freecheese and Company. I had hard time gathering information about the said company because Google search does not give relevant results.

Free Cheese & Company Logo

Then I decided to check who Alex (signature on the postcards) is. And at last I found the name of the company that produced the postcards and about the characters on the postcards.


The Alex Company (Biembi's greeting cards) trio was born in 1985, from the pencil of Alex Rinesch, when Free, all big ears and large feet mouse, falls onto Earth from his Cheese Planet. Alone, penniless and seeking for a flat to share, the rebel mouse Free soon meets the sleepy cat Sugar and elephant Little Bo. They are the main characters of a wacky but harmonious universe. The trio plays, studies, works, travels, socializes, falls in love, gets angry…in a word it experiences true emotions.


Surpise! from Free

Happy Birthday! From Free

03 October, 2007

Embosed Greeting Postcards

Postcards can be grouped in two very broad categories: view cards and greeting cards. Greeting cards would include holiday postcards (Christmas, Easter, New Year), birthday cards, portraits of persons, comedy cards, cards with sayings, etc. However, some greetings such as the "Labor Day" cards, are considered scarce.

Early greeting cards are some of the most beautiful cards every printed. Publishers competing for sales, printed cards using intricate embossing techniques, high caliber art work, superior inks, expensive lithographic processes and even novelty additions such as glitter, ribbons, silk and feathers.


Used Birthday Greetings Card
dated January 17, 1914

in Kapampangan (Filipino Language)


Used Greetings Card (linen)
dated December 15, 1914
in Spanish
GA Novelty Art Series no. 1256

G. A. Novelty Co. (1908-1910)
New York, NY
A publisher of simple greeting and unique novelty postcards. They were manufactured in Germany.


Used Greetings Card
dated January 17, 1914
in Spanish