Greetings Cards in the change of times
One can assume that since ancient times human beings who care for one another, wish each other good luck for the unforeseeable future. For instance, it is known that the old Egyptians did so specifically on New Year's day, with the hope that a new life cycle in nature would also offer mankind new beginnings without any negative influence from the past. As a symbol for new life scarabaei and flasks were given as presents along with little self-composed verses written on papyrus by the giver.
Our European ancestors practised similar customs. During the
late middle ages
and the beginning of modern times it became common place on New
Year's day to pay visits specifically to wish people good luck
for the future.
Following the invention of printing, aristocrats in France
and Austria, and later prosperous merchants, had name cards printed,
which they left with relatives, acquaintances and friends, after
visiting them. In the high society of Vienna the quantity of
visiting cards was taken as an indicator of how popular a person
was.
Later this custom became so exaggerated that some people even
ran from house to house just to distribute as many cards of their
own as possible. Soon name cards were widely distributed by servants
on the behalf of their masters.
Out of co-incidental fusion, being a deep need to wish only the
very best to beloved ones, to give and receive presents, out
of temporarily overexalted custom, new techniques and abilities
the New Year Greeting Card was born. This idea then developed
over centuries and gave rise to all the other types of greeting
cards we have today! The eldest known greeting card in the German
speaking part of Europe dates from 1493.
In former times the main occasions for writing greeting cards
were name-day, Christmas and New Year. Since the beginning of
the 20th century even lower class people started to celebrate
their birthdays, still another occasion for a very personal greeting.
Today every second card sent in Germany is one for a birthday.
With the prosperity of the 60s, people started to buy more expensive
cards with personel motives into which they could write more
and more private texts. People's careful selection and the card's
improved image is revealed in the fact that today almost 90%
of all cards bought are greeting cards, sent in envelopes. In
reality there is no occasion where the purchase of a suitable
greeting card is not possible. Cards with pictorial or textual
humour, in splendid calligraphy on quality materials, with poems
or without any text, embossed or die cut, with reproductions
of traditional or modern paintings, for relatives or for the
boss, today everybody can make their own choice from among the
large selection available in well stocked stationery departments.
Naturally, the heathen custom of wishing good luck at the beginning
of a new year was always frowned upon by the Christian church.
Since the clergy were mediator of scholarship in Europe for several
centuries, educated people quite often showed some reservation
towards New Year's cards and transferred this feeling later to
cards for other upcoming occasions, especially in Middle Europe.
People who sent greeting cards were sneered at, and thought to
be unable to write letters.
However, greeting cards never claimed to contain a very high
standard of literature. They were not created to replace well
written correspondence. Their pupose was and is to represent
their sender, delivering a short message from one friend to another,
chosen specifically for the person receiving it. They are simply
something meant to convey the joy of life, without any sense
of warning and without criticism.This is the perception of people
in Anglo-Saxon countries towards greeting cards. Germany, in
terms of per capita consumption, in comparison to the USA, Great
Britain, or even to its direct neighbour, the Netherlands, is
still in the development stage in the world of greeting cards.
The AVG has set itself the task to change this. However, in co-operation
with the other groups in the market.
What
is the special meaning
of greeting cards
and postcards?
How do postcards and greeting cards take shape?
Greeting Cards
in the change of times
The
history of open to send postcards
An exhibition of
postcards during the "Paperworld" in Frankfurt 1999
The
development
of both the postcard
and the picture postcard
Sympathy
cards
from all over the world
An exhibition during
the "Paperworld" in Frankfurt 1998
The official measurements for envelops in Germany