Vinegar Valentines - A Different Kind Of Valentine's Day Card

Today is Valentine's Day 2011 and I am going to introduce you to a different kind of Valentine Card. They are referred to as Vinegar Valentines. They are nothing like the lovely and beautiful cards I showed you the past two years (at http://michaeltheresearcher.blogspot.com/2009/02/victorian-era-valentines-day-cards.html and http://michaeltheresearcher.blogspot.com/2010/02/valentines-day-2010.html). These cards featured sarcastic, caustic and insulting messages for their respective recipients. Valentine's Day has not always been rosy and pretty! I only have two of these in my collection at present. One is called "Sugar Poppa" and the other is titled "The 'Regular' Fellow". The first dates to about 1940 and second dates to around the 1910s.

Here is a video discussing them in detail:

The url for the above video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIlf3R-A_Go

Here are some photos of the Vinegar Valentines ...

As you can see, I am shocked by the content:




The "Sugar Poppa" example is one of a series of sixteen made by the Panoco/Doubl-Glo Company:


The "The 'Regular' Fellow" example was published by the Auburn company as part of its Comic Knock Valentine series (Number 2117):


These messages are obviously far from sentimental ... they are, in fact, quite acetic. Still they represent the diversity of cards and ephemera available and the different intentions people have had with new inventions and technologies. Vinegar Valentines are no doubt a very interesting area of collecting. I look forward to acquiring more of these in the future.