Letter Writers Alliance

Have a Creepy Christmas

I mean, you know I will, because that's how I roll, but the Victorians were on my side. Check out these amazing vintage cards of yesteryear. Before Christmas was codified red and green and St. Nick was standardized by advertisements, there was a lot of originality to be had in holiday imagery. The eldritch-looking jellyfish ones are a modern creation, but I still appreciate expanding the idea of how Christmas can be presented. Plus, they go with a story, and I think story-telling should always be part of the long nights of the Winter holiday. Whatever cards you sent or received, I'm wishing you many more of both! Here's to fuller mailboxes ahead!

Taipei's Typhoon-Bent Mailboxes

When I saw these mailboxes on the Christchurch Letter Writers Society Instagram page, I had to know more! In 2015, a powerful typhoon tore through Taipei with winds in excess of 200 kilometers per hour. These boxes were slammed into by a sign which cause them to be bent at this angle. In the midst of all the chaos and tragedy, the mailboxes were seen as something to smile about. From Amusing Planet:

"Many Taiwanese think the city’s postboxes resemble faces, and this side-by-side pair, with their poles identically bent looked like a pair of dogs cocking their heads in confusion."

"The mailboxes —nicknamed "Xiao Hong" (little red) and "Xiao Lu" (little green)— became so popular with locals as well as with tourists that the post office decided to keep them in their current shape. The mailboxes still accept letters, and Chunghwa Post now stamps them with a special postmark showing the two leaning celebrities."

While the boxes are typically found near the intersection of Nanjing East Road and Longjiang Road, the head correspondent of CHLWS found them re-stationed in the airport for the holiday. They do look quite festive and fun!

Christmas Seals

Christmas seals, a form of cinderella stamp, were first used as fund-raising item for a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1907. From the American Lung Association website:

"The tiny Delaware sanatorium would have to close its doors if $300 could not be raised to save it. One of its doctors explained the plight to his cousin, a Red Cross volunteer named Emily Bissell. Bissell was a veteran fundraiser, and she soon came up with a plan based on one that had worked in Denmark*: She would design and print special holiday seals and sell them at the post office for a penny each.

By the end of her holiday campaign (and after an endorsement by President Roosevelt), she and a large group of committed volunteers had raised ten times the goal and the American Lung Association Christmas Seals were born."

Anyone can issue a seal at Christmas time (some were even issued by the Nazis, according to the oh-so-credible Wikipedia), but are not technically classed as "Christmas Seals" unless they were originally sold to combat tubercolosis and, later, other respiratory diseases. If you find yourself needing some, there's an exhaustive website available for you!

I often find the postage stamp-like seals inside the random collections I purchase on eBay. As a child, I remember finding them in the depths of my Grandfather's enormous desk, stuck together, but still vibrant and colorful. I will always be a sucker for anything perforated. I still miss the sheet of "stamps" that would come in the Publishers Clearinghouse packets. Anyone else remember those?

 

PS - Some Danish seals on GrainEdit with a design sense I enjoy greatly.

PPS - This article was first published on our blog in 2010! I updated it just a little for this posting.

Holiday Historical Favorites

In case you didn't notice, I have been blogging every day of December. I figured it'd be a nice send off as the blog will go mostly dormant after the first of the year. I'm dusting off some older posts and re-sharing them, as well as sprinkling in that headiest of offerings, "new content". Here are three of my favorite historical holiday postings from across the years.

Chimney Post

The History of Letters to Father Christmas

50 Years of Holiday Postage Stamps

Were there any favorite blog postings I did that you remember? Share a link to memory lane in the comments!

 

 

An Appreciation of the Postal Mailbox

We all appreciate the post box here. It's nice to know that other people think about the mailbox too; people like Paul Lukas who wrote this article for Gizmodo. He points out that there is yet another mail-restrictive design being rolled out. I sigh heavily and hang my head. Yes, I understand that there are security issues. Yes, I understand that it is extremely troubling that some humans misuse mailboxes for things other than mail. I wish these things didn't result in a sapping of the vitality of this crazy, giant system that I love. This is still the Year of the Postbox and I will continue to post things from the corner box as long as they exist in whatever form they take.

P.S. Do read the article. It goes into good detail about the history of postbox design.

Alexandria Blue Boy

This is a stamp story that has it all- rarity, history, romance, and money. Recently, the "Alexandria Blue Boy" went up for auction. It was last made available in 1981 and is one of the most highly sought-after covers in philately. (A "cover" is a philatelic term for an envelope that has been sent through the mail.) The "Blue Boy" is a Postmaster's Provisional stamp and is so called because of its blue color. All the other remaining Postmaster's Provisionals, of which there are very few, are in a buff color. All of this is remarkable, that such a slim scrap survived so long. What adds to the tale is that the letter inside the envelope survives as well. 

The letter is between two young courting people. Their's is a forbidden love! She's an Episcopalian! He's a Presbyterian! This will never work! But they had a secret courtship via letters, and this one remains, even though James told Jannett to “Burn as Usual”. Here's an excerpt from the letter:

"Mother laughingly remarked ‘That if there was any love going on Aunt Julia was sure to find it out,’ and while making that remark, I think, looked at me, but I continued reading, as if what she said did not apply to me in the least.”

So romantic. It's made a nicer story to know that they did eventually get married and have a presumably happy and fruitful union. And to think, this letter, because of its stamp, is now worth in the million, if not multi-million dollar range. Bidding opens at one million on June 22 if you'd like to add it to your collection.

Letter Writing in America

It's Monday and I know everyone is diligently at work and not reading this blog. I know that you definitely don't have time to read this really informative and illuminating history of Letter Writing in America by Kathryn Burke. I know that you won't spend all day following the links and learning all you can about this love we all share. Don't blame me when you get fired, is what I'm saying.

Cobweb Valentines

The collection of Valentines held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is probably far greater than even the collection of letters I have piled up in the studio. In doing some research for Valentine's Day, I came across this posting from Nancy Rosin, a volunteer curator and valentine ephemera enthusiast. She posted some true Valentine treasures she found in a humble black box. They are amazing! The cobweb valentines in particular are just super. I'd never even heard of cobweb valentines. Lucky for me, there's a posting she did all about cobweb valentines from 2017. 

"Cobwebs—also known as beehives, flower cages, or birdcages—are a rare example of a mechanical or movable valentine consisting of a minimum of two layers of paper. First, a web or cage would be cut from a piece of paper by making a pattern of concentric circles, leaving attachment points at regular intervals. In the center of the spiral, a delicate thread would be attached and its outer edges would be pasted directly on top of a second sheet on which an image or message would be written, painted, or printed.

As a cover, the cobweb formed the perfect sanctuary to enclose a private message that could only be revealed when the recipient of the card carefully pulled up the thread, causing the concentric circles of the web to rise and magically expose its hidden compartment. The concept of secrecy and the element of surprise frequently recurs in valentines, as they speak to the intimacy that has always been a part of the language of love and is one of the reasons why the cobwebs were so popular."

The New York Times has an excellent collection of images that Nancy also helped with from the Huntington Library, which is where I found the charming mouse cobweb image above. I find them all really great. This was a lot of fun to find out. Do take some time to look at those links. The valentines are all wonderful. Happy Valentine's All!

 

The Ladylike Language of Letters

This article from the Lingua Obscura column on JSTOR Daily focuses on how women's letters have helped to evolve language. The Ladylike Language of Letters lays out a timeline of communication by women that can trace various quirks of language to origins in letters. The author, Chi Luu, also explores the changing status of the letter, from public to private document and how that helped shift the way in which we write our letters today.

"In effect, women, going about their daily duties, invented the modern personal letter as we know it.

This is not to discount the many significant, delightful, affecting letters written by men who may have had more worldly subjects to talk about. But Daybell and others note that the letter developed a more personal, private and introspective form because of the ways women were writing letters, using informal styles that were conversational and spontaneous, more like speech. This was different from the structured styles of the past and was one of the major linguistic contributions women made to the epistolary genre."

I encourage anyone interested in history, language, and/or letters to read this piece. Heck, that whole column is pretty fascinating. Thanks to member Jessica N. for sending me this link!

Have A Merry Dead Bird Christmas

Wait, what? No really. Oh, those wacky Victorians. Bless 'em for their love of ephemera and the joy they had in sending cards, but some of their practices are quite perplexing. I enjoyed this article at Hyperallergic on why dead birds on Christmas cards were a thing at one time. Basically, it all boils down to those damn dirty pagans. The article is a good read. Have you started sending out holiday cards yet? What do you think people 200 years from now will find very strange about our greeting cards?