Lace Paper Greeting Cards

This month's feature is a set of greeting cards from the late 1800's. They are numbered in the Dard Hunter Collection from #6090 to #6105. This set comes from the collection of a greeting and valentine card maker in England, Jonathan King. King was famous for building layered cards using lace paper and scraps or illustrations; the lace paper was usually obtained from local paper firms such as W.J. Meek & Son or H. Dobbs & Co. The artifacts in our collection are all incomplete cards, consisting primarily of the base lace layer and some basic color, and this selection dates from between 1860 and 1870. 

Lace paper is created using die-cutting machines and embossing techniques. Die-cutting originates from defective embossing techniques - to emboss paper, a metal shape called a die is pressed into the paper to create raised designs. If the die cuts all the way through the paper instead, the paper has been 'die-cut'. Lace papers are the result of very fine die-cuts, and greeting cards from the 1800's used both embossed and die-cut lace patterns for decoration. Gold and silver accents were applied by pressing metal foil onto wet varnish on the surface and then wiping a cloth over it, removing the foil on the unvarnished areas. Valentines in particular had become hugely popular and were the most common form of greeting card at the time; our collection of lace cards were all made to be used as valentines.  

We hope that you enjoyed this peek at our collection! We'll be back next month with another artifact. Have a great September!