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An Illustrated History of the Embroidered Silk Postcards is the standard reference book on embroidered silk postcards. It contains references to over 2600 different cards with over 270 illustrations. This section covers embroidered greetings cards that are not postcards but are closely related.
There is a class of embroidered greetings cards that hinge open to reveal a printed greeting inside. They are not postcards but were available at similar times. My book and this website are dedicated to postcards, which has, by far, the largest group of themes and subjects, and many more were produced. Most collections of embroidered silk postcards have a few embroidered greetings cards, and they can look almost identical. I am including them here to finish off the story of embroidered cards. There is no other source of information on them.
I estimate that no more than 1% of embroidered cards manufactured were greetings cards. They are limited to sentimental and patriotic designs, and it is extremely rare to find one with any other theme. The limited amount of information available on publishers of them indicates that they were some of the same people who published embroidered silk postcards. It is likely that they saw them as an additional product to add to their mainstream postcards. Some of the embroidered panels on the greetings cards are identical to those used on postcards, but many are unique to the greetings cards.
Embroidered greetings cards are available in both horizontal and vertical styles, and a few of the horizontal ones have an envelope front. A few cards have a printed postcard back, but most are plain. Most of them have a silk ribbon inserted into the "hinge" of the card, which is usually in red, white and blue, although other single colours are known. The greetings cards are often postcard size, but many are larger and have distinctively designed frames.
I have not attempted to compile a complete listing of designs of embroidered greetings cards. A selection of cards is shown below.
Information and images on this site are © Ian Collins 2021.
No part may be reproduced, stored, transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the author.
The greetings card above left has the silk ribbon across the top hinge of the opening card. This is also an early dated example of a "deckle edge" card, something that wasn't introduced into postcard designs until well into the 1920s.
The inside of this greetings card has a calendar for 1916. it was probably sent for Christmas 1915, and must have been designed in that year. It was published by P. Racine of Paris, a known postcard publisher. The embroidered design has not been seen as a postcard.
The embroidered greetings card above is shown with an image of the interior printed greeting. This is a representative of a large group of similar card with different printed greetings on the front. The cards are larger than normal postcard size. This embroidered design has not been seen on a postcard, but others in this series have.
Two cards with an identical design and different captions. The greetings card on the left is larger than the standard postcard size of the card on the right, but the size of the embroidery is the same.
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