Ways to Say I Love You

QUESTION: I’ve loved Valentine’s Day ever since I was in the first grade and my new best friend gave me a valentine card at our class’s party. Every year I would go out of my way to give really different cards. I became so inspired that I began looking for valentines all year round. I’ve amassed quite a collection of old valentine cards, but I really have no idea how the tradition of giving valentine greetings began. Can you help me put this in perspective?

ANSWER: Sending valentine greetings actually began during Roman times. Legend says that Valentinus, a Roman priest who encouraged young couples to many, sent the first valentine in 270 A.D.  Unfortunately , the reigning Emperor, Claudius II, disapproved of Christianity, and of marriage, in general. It was the Emperor's belief that married soldiers would soon forget that their primary allegiance should be to their Emperor, rather than to their wives.

The Emperor ordered Valentinus beheaded for disregarding his orders to cease his actions. Legend also says Valentinus befriended the blind daughter of the jailer, and apparently restoring her sight. In turn, the young woman brought food and delivered messages to him during his incarceration. On February 14, the eve of his execution, he wrote her a note of appreciation, signing it "From your Valentine."

A forerunner of the valentine greeting began in the 16th century with religious mementos of the Sacred Heart created in convents in France, Germany and Holland. Carefully crafted on parchment or vellum, the designs emulating the hand-tatted lace of the period.

The custom of Valentine's Day as an occasion developed gradually as the techniques of making paper advanced.  In 1834, the English made improvements to lace paper, originally  made in Germany and Austria in the early 19th century. The openwork, cameo-embossed lace paper allowed English publishers to publish elegant love letters, romantic stationery and valentines for an increasing number of customers.

These were miniature works of art which incorporated the use of ribbons and scraps, pearls and Dresden die-cuts. Some were movable or perfumed, while others had tiny mirrors attached to them to reflect the image of the beloved.

People made most early American valentines by hand. The influence of the immigrant German cultures resulted in folk-art paper items known as scherenschnitte, meaning paper cutting, and fraktur, or paper designs incorporating German calligraphy and imagery.

By the early 20th century, several publishers of lithographs and wood engravings began making  valentines in New York City. But it was Esther Howland who many consider the mother of the American valentine.



The Howland family operated the largest book and stationery store in Worcester, Massachusetts. As a student at the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary, Class of 1847, she had been exposed to annual Valentine's Day festivities, which were later banned by the college for being too frivolous.

After graduation, Howland received an elaborate English valentine from one of her father's business associates. She convinced her father to order lace paper and other sup-plies from England and New York City. With these she made a dozen samples, which her brother added to his inventory for his next sales trip. When her brother returned with more than $5,000 in advance sales, she established a cottage industry where ladies would have materials and samples delivered and picked up at their homes, thus allowing them to mass-produce valentines.

While Esther Howland was not the first to create valentines in America, she did popularize the lace valentine, enabling her to earn $100.000 a year. In 1881, she sold her valentine business to an associate, George Whitney, whose company patterned many of their cards on the Howland model.

Another Victorian passion was the postcard. Publishers produced popular designs in huge quantities, since Valentine's Day was a big card-sending holiday at the time. But despite the availability of a wide variety of valentine cards, the demand for beautiful and unusual images has driven up the price for collectors. Ordinary postcard valentines can sell for $5 or less, but quality valentine postcards tend to sell for $8 to $10 each.






Production of valentine postcards ceased by World War I. It wasn’t until the 1930s that folded cards were became popular. The 1960s produced cards with red satin hearts, sachet centers, and simulated jewels and lace.

Today, Valentine's Day is the second largest holiday for giving a greeting card, with approximately 180 million cards exchanged. About 30 percent of all modern valentines are for meant for romantic love relationships. Valentinus would be proud.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about the Victorians in the Winter 2018 Edition, "All Things Victorian," online now.

Valentines from Across the Seas

QUESTION: While vacationing in Nantucket last summer, I came across some beautiful souvenirs made of shells. The shop owner said they’re called “Sailor’s Valentines.” While the one I purchased is newly made, I saw others in the Nantucket Whaling Museum a few blocks away. What is the history behind these things of beauty? Who made them and where did they come from?

ANSWER: Most sailor’s valentines date from the early 19th century. Beginning in 1830, whaling ships set sail from Nantucket and later New Bedford, Massachusetts in search of mighty whales, from which they extracted whale oil used to grease the machines of the Industrial Revolution.


While Nantucket was the center of whaling in New England–at its height nearly 400 ships called the island port home—these weren’t the only types of ships that sailed the oceans of the world. Sailing ships, later known as clippers because of their fast speed, sailed to all the major ports of the world. From the early to the latter part of the 19th century when steam-powered ships took over the seas, the sailors aboard them spent years aboard in search of whales and moving cargo from one port of call to the next, often gone from home for several years. When they stopped to exchange cargo or gather provisions, they went ashore, discovering unique souvenirs to take home to their wives and girlfriends. Besides objects decorated with scrimshaw, which they, themselves, made, they found some unusual octagonal wooden boxes filled with seashells in shops on the island of Barbados in the Caribbean.

Between about 1830 and 1880, residents of Barbados made and sold what came to be known as Sailor’s Valentines to the lonely English and American sailors.

From the 1630s to the end of the 19th century, Barbados was an important port of call for sugar, rum, lumber, and fish. Because of this, a number of shops catered to the souvenir trade. The Victorian love for collecting and displaying exotic objects from afar possibly fueled the industry and contributed to the popularity of the valentines.

Historians believe that most of the sailors' valentines came from the New Curiosity Shop on McGregor Street in Bridgetown, Barbados, owned by two English brothers, B.H. and George Belgrave, who hired locals to make the valentines.

The local valentine makers constructed the special octagonal, hinged boxes, ranging in size from 8 to 15
inches across, using mahogany veneer for the sides and native cedar wood called cedrella, for the bottoms. Then they lined the insides of the boxes with colored paper, most often pink, onto which they placed cotton batting. Next they glued hundreds of colorful tiny seashells in intricate symmetrical mosaic designs incorporating hearts and flowers, which often featured a compass rose centerpiece. After gluing down all the shells, the maker placed a piece of glass over the design to protect them. They called these double valentines.

Sometimes the makers incorporated a special sentimental message that a sailor would request into the design, thus the name Sailors’ Valentines. Sentiments typically appeared only on the smaller 9½-inch double valentines, which often displayed a heart motif on the opposite half. Some of the more popular ones were “To My Sweetheart,” “To My Love,” “Home Again,” and “From a Friend.” The larger 13½- to 14-inch valentines rarely had sayings, but instead had more intricate shell-work designs on both sides.

Today, Sailors’ Valentines command high prices at auctions and antique shows. Some of the best, however, are part of the collections of the New Bedford and Nantucket Whaling Museums, and the Peabody Essex Museum, all in Massachusetts. Collectors value antique sailors' valentines for their beauty and unusual qualities. But their high prices make it difficult for most beginning collectors to acquire the originals. A small double valentine that twenty years ago sold for $350 to $600, now sells for $500 to $1,500, and the price for a large double valentine has jumped from $1,000 to between $2,500 and $10,000—that is if either can be found.

Plus, a thriving business making new sailors’ valentines has emerged on Nantucket Many of these have frames that have been faux finished to imitate the original woods and their designs copied to imitate the originals. Beyond the souvenir shops, collectors must be vigilant because many of these imitations have been sold as antiques.