Collectors divide collectible valentines into
the following types:
-
Folk Art Valentines that are handmade. These
American valentines date from the 1600 and include the Theorem style,
which uses stencil transfer and is finished with watercolors.
-
Pennsylvania German and Swiss folk art includes
Scherenschnitte, "paper pictures carefully cut with scissors"
that are hand assembled in multi-layered collages.
-
Pennsylvania Germans also incorporated "Fraktur
as well as pin pricking techniques into their cut work." Fraktur
is a type of calligraphy that breaks each letter horizontally. Fraktur
work from 1580 to 1750 was sometimes derived from French Swiss, English,
and German textile pattern books.
-
Pin pricking
paper was done by immigrants using "different widths of needs
and pins" to create designs in the paper.
-
Polish immigrants cut paper in a style called
Wycinanki, which represented religious and cultural holidays, and
was "displayed on windows and walls."
-
Other forms of folk valentines include:
-
Love tokens, which can take multiple forms:
"paperweights, gloves, thimbles;
-
Puzzle valentines folded envelopes with decorated
flaps, which usually held a prize inside;
-
Watch papers--valentines which could pit in
pocket watch cases;
-
Ribbon valentines, multiple pieces of paper
strung with differently colored ribbons-each piece of paper has a
question, and each ribbon represents an answer-the valentine receiver
would answer by picking one ribbon and returning it to the giver.
Sources:
Written and researched by Sylvie Beauvais, Philadelphia,
PA.
Adapted from Katherin Kreider. Valentines with Values. "Chapter
I, Folk Art Valentines: Handmade."Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing,
1996. (pp. 8-11)
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