Valentine Card: Vintage 1940s, Victorian Couple Silhouettes, A-Meri-Card, Ephemera

White silhouettes of a Victorian couple rest inside bold red hearts, offering a simple wish: “For You on Valentine's Day.” It's a sweet piece of 1940s ephemera, still carrying the pencil signature of the sweetheart who sent it.

• Maker: A-Meri-Card
• Materials: Paper
• Dimensions: Approximately 3.75 × 4.5 inches
• Origin: USA
• Era: Vintage 1940s
• Condition: Good vintage condition, used, with pencil writing; yellowed with age, no rips, tears, or folds; no envelope. Please review photos closely before purchasing, as all sales are final.

Marked with A-Meri-Card design number O-2921A, this card pairs crisp white cameo-style silhouettes with saturated red hearts, a nod to the silhouette portraits that stayed popular in valentine design well into the twentieth century. The pencil inscription and gentle age toning are part of its story, a reminder that it was once chosen, signed, and given.

A charming find for a greeting card collector, or a lovely piece for arts and crafts and vintage valentine displays.

A-Meri-Card has one of the more intriguing backstories in American greeting cards. The name appears on cards well before American Greetings of Cleveland filed its trademark in January 1960, and at least some 1940s A-Meri-Card pieces, including a 1947 punch-out party book, carry markings from the American Colortype Company, a large commercial color printer based in Chicago and New York. American Greetings carried the brand forward and kept it in production into at least the 1980s. Most surviving examples date to the 1950s and 1960s, and their die-cut designs and cheerful puns have made them favorites with collectors of mid-century ephemera.

Browse our shop for more vintage valentine cards to round out your collection.