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The first known Christmas card is printed on the front cover with a date of 1843. The original was in muted colours, hand painted, printed and sold for 1/- each (5p) - a lot of money in those days. Despite the date on this card, encyclopaedias say that Christmas cards were first sold in 1846!
By the 1860s the idea of sending cards had caught on as they were able to be produced much more cheaply with the invention of less expensive colour printing. The first Christmas cards had lace and flowery borders, but then they changed to more familiar designs.
The robin became very popular as were Victorian snow scenes, religious pictures, holly, Christmas trees etc. Many similar scenes are reproduced in our cards today.
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The card reproduced above was printed as a postcard
and sent in 1905 with a ˝d stamp. |
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