Collectiblog

Valentine’s Day can be difficult. Buying the right gift, getting the right gift, getting no gift at all… if not done just right, it can lead to a lot of disappointment. Rather than worrying about giving (or getting) that right piece of jewelry or the perfect box of candy, I think it would be much more civilized if we all just treated Valentine’s Day like we did back in grade school -- with silly cards that you gave to everyone so no one felt left out.

I have a couple of Valentine’s Day cards from way back. I didn’t save them for any particular reason -- they just somehow got stuck in my old photo album -- but I always loved getting them. They all have a great generic feel with big hearts and slightly scary illustrations. The images look like they were drawn by people who graduated from the art school that advertised on the back of matchbooks. I often wonder who drew these, and even more importantly, who came up with the concept for each card? There are literally thousands of them out there, all so similar, yet so different.

I must confess, I don’t know a whole lot about the history of Valentine’s Day or the cards, but at some point in the late ‘60s or early ‘70s a shift came where the kid’s cards went from generic to featuring famous cartoon characters like the Peanuts gang, Disney and Warner Bros. as well as Marvel Super Heroes. All the biggies were immortalized on small, amorous cards.

If you didn’t get your share of cards on Feb. 14 in 1971, Topps put out a line of “Nasty Valentines” in gum card packs with crazy cartoons that folded over to reveal sophomoric jokes about romance. They’re not all that funny (though they made me laugh when I was 9 years old) and have really goofy illustrations that could only have come out of the post-hippie era. I also liked the McDonald’s Valentines of the mid-‘70s, featuring the Krofft-like images of McDonaldland characters including Ronald McDonald, Big Mac and the evil Grimac.... 

In the ‘80s, you could buy Valentines of The Transformers, Rainbow Bright, Fraggle Rock and Care Bears. The next decade brought some of my favorite collectible cards, like Ren & Stimpy and the Power Puff Girls. Since then, there have been Valentine homages to Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants. This year’s biggie seems to be Hannah Montana, and though I haven’t seen any High School Musical cards yet, I’m guessing they are out there.