Two snapshots that might feel at home in a Ransom Riggs book

These two found snapshots could be a part of the universe in Ransom Riggs' two novels built around vernacular photos — Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Hollow City. Photos that come with no captions or identifying information always have an air of mystery to them.

Tambourine Girl
Scribbled on the back in pencil is "1942." The license-plate number is 15093, but I can't make out what state it's from.

Bicycle Boys
There's no information on this tiny snapshot. What can we tell from the clothes they're wearing? Is the person on the porch related to the boys?

If it's your birthday, enjoy this postcard featuring sheep

"WHAT CAN I WISH
THEE, FRIEND, TO-DAY,
WHAT CAN MY HEART
IN GREETING SAY?
I WISH THEE ALL THAT
IS GOOD AND TRUE,
ALL THAT IS BEST,
I WISH FOR YOU."
Also, sheep.

This "Best Birthday Wishes" postcard features a small flock of sheep in a pastoral setting, with a small house in the background.

The card was pasted into a scrapbook at some point and, upon its removal, most of the back came off, too. It's possible the postmark is from Landisville, Pennsylvania. (But that's a guess. The only letters I can see are NDISVIL.)

Other posts featuring sheep and goats

• Weekend postcards: French sheep, old structures and people-watching
• Flock of sheep featured on endpapers of Elson Junior Literature book
• Postcard featuring my dream house
• "Mind not the Blush that burns your cheek" (plus gratuitous goats)

Six dandy old valentines that students gave to their teachers

For Valentine's Day, here are some pretty awesome vintage cards that were delivered to teachers many decades ago.

1. A Valentine For Teacher

This heart-shaped card was given "To My Teacher" by Ruth Ramsey. The text on the inside states: "I couldn't speak before the others ... Couldn't tell you o'er the phone ... But I'd like to whisper softly ... Just for your ear alone— ... MY TEACHER is A-NUMBER 1."

2. I've The Nicest Teacher in the World

This heart-shaped, globe-themed valentine was for Miss Spott, from Fyetta.² There is no text beyond that. (As a minor aside, the depiction of North and South American on the globe is fairly poor, don't you think?)

3. To My Teacher

My, what rosy cheeks! This valentine was given to Mabel Spotts by Pearl Waterman.² The card opens up to give the following pre-printed message:

"Though I'm not big enough to say
Most anything the grown-up way
Of this I'm sure as sure can be
My teacher means a lot to me!"

4. A Valentine For My Teacher

This mathematics-intensive card was given to Miss Spotts by George M. The illustration of the desk folds out to the left, and an additional message states: "NORTH, SOUTH, EAST OR WEST ... OF ALL THE NICE TEACHERS MY TEACHER'S THE BEST."

5. You Pass All the Tests, Be My Valentine

This card, made in the United States, simply states "RONALD" on the back. I'm thinking the teacher's use of the bell was a bit antiquated, even for the decade that this card was produced. But I could be wrong.

6. You're My Valentine Today

Remember when school days didn't start until 9 a.m.? The front of the card states: "I May Be Late For School Today ... But Do Not Scold Me, Please." And the inside finishes: "I'll Never Be Too Late to Say that you're my Valentine today."

So, do we think the apple is sufficient to get her out of trouble? Will she still have to go bang out the erasers behind the schoolhouse?

The card was given to Mrs. Mabel Geiger by Margaret Ann.

See all of Papergreat's vintage valentines

Footnotes
1. Two other cards refer to her last name as Spotts, so we'll have to assume, though from a tiny sample size, that Spotts is correct.
2. Alas: "Your search - 'Mabel Spotts' 'Pearl Waterman' - did not match any documents."

Pax Lectio: Some reading selections to get through the latest snowstorm

Who names a snowstorm Pax, anyway?

There's not much peace about what Pax is bringing to the eastern United States this week. We're in the process of getting what will amount to somewhere between 6 and 18 inches of snow, according to the various forecasters, right now in southcentral Pennsylvania.

Whatever it ends up being, it's a great excuse to kick back and read. It's been a while since I posted one of my eclectic roundups of reading suggestions. This isn't quite #FridayReads, but if you have power or Wifi, you can consider these your Pax Links to pass the time when you're not shoveling, salting or throwing logs on the fire.

• The New Yorker: "Cheap Words: Amazon is good for customers. But is it good for books?" by George Packer
• The Atlantic: "Why Writers Are the Worst Procrastinators" by Megan McArdle
• EuroGamer: "Inside Monopoly's secret war against the Third Reich" by Christian Donlan
• Mental Floss: "12 Letters That Didn't Make the Alphabet" by M. Asher Cantrell
• BBC News: "Palmerston: The island at the end of the earth" by Thomas Martienssen
• Aeon Magazine: "Creepypasta: With a flood of dark memes and viral horror stories, the internet is mapping the contours of modern fear" by Will Wiles
• BuzzFeed: "Why I Bought A House In Detroit For $500" by Drew Philp
• Writer Unboxed: "Ten Myths about Writing" by Keith Cronin
• Unschool Rules: "There’s beauty in everything: Unschooling fine arts" by Joan Otto
• The Cat's Meat Shop: "Chimney Sweep Slang"
• The Atlantic: "How Great Would It Be for Leno to Go on Letterman One Last Time?" by Luke Epplin
• My Inside Voices: "Goodbye old buddy" by Susan Jennings
• The New York Times: "Wikipedia vs. the Small Screen" by Noam Cohen
• The New York Times: "When Babies Don’t Fit Plan, Question for Zoos Is, Now What?" by Leslie Kaufman (a 2012 article that sheds some more light on the Copenhagen Zoo's recent controversial decision to euthanize a healthy male giraffe)
• Book Riot: "The Conversation We Should Be Having About J.K. Rowling’s Big Reveal" by Peter Damien
• Messy Nessy Chic: "This Guy’s Job is to make Paper Props for Boardwalk Empire & Hollywood Films"
• TwistedSifter: "Hiding Air Bases, Factories and Plants in WWII"

This year's oddest vintage valentine

I have many questions...

What is this boy wearing?
What is he doing on the roof?
Is it even HIS roof?
Why is he grinning like that?
How is he going to get down?

This is the oddest vintage Valentine's Day card that I have to offer up this year. I'm not sure if it's as creepy as last year's postcard or as unsettling as the red-lipped cat from 2012, but it's certainly a contender.

Here's hoping you never have a kid like that on your roof.

Two adorable handmade valentines for Mrs. Geiger

I picked up these old handmade valentines, along with a bunch of others, last year at an antiques store in northcentral Pennsylvania. There's no date, so I would just guess 1930s or 1940s.

The first one, pictured at right, has the following text on the inside of the card, written in cursive and in pencil:

I'm always lonely.
I'm always blue.
I'm always longing.
Just for you.

The card was made for Mrs. Geiger, from Mary and Florence.

Do you think the sketch of the little girl with bows in her hair is traced? It looks to me like it might be. When I hold the card up to the light, I can see a watermark that reads "MODERN FORM" in bubble letters. The paper isn't transparent enough, though, for normal tracing. The student would have needed a light source underneath. If it wasn't traced, that's certainly a very good piece of artwork.

Here's the second of the two cards. The front has a circle cut out of the middle of the clock.

And here's the inside of the card.

The illustration of the little girl is quite similar to the one on the first card. And, in fact, this one is from Florence to Mrs. Geiger.

Handmade valentines took a lot more time and skill than just buying one of those jumbo packs of small, pre-printed valentines with a Care Bears or Batman theme.

Two old Valentine's Day postcards, circa 1907-08

Continuing with the Valentine's Day-themed ephemera, here are a pair of postcards that are more than a century old. It's interesting to see how pink, green and white were the predominant colors on these postcards. Now, that could just be a small sample size. But red is certainly not the overwhelming color in these illustrations, as it is today.

Above: The postmark is blurred on this To my Sweet Valentine postcard. It appears, however, to be from February 1907. The reverse side does not have a divided back and is for the address only, which fits in with early 1907. It wasn't until March 1, 1907, that the U.S. Post Office allowed messages on the back of a postcard. This postcard was mailed to Miss Mae McGinnis at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. It was produced by Raphael Tuck & Sons.¹

Above: This postcard features a Cupid-like figure, with some dangerous-looking arrows, on the front. It was postmarked at 7:30 p.m. on February 12, 1908, in Jersey City, New Jersey.² And it was mailed to Miss Naomi Snyder in Spry, Pennsylvania.³ The note simply states "FROM SAM." The postcard was printed in Germany.

Footnotes
1. Previous posts featuring Raphael Tuck & Sons:

• Very old Christmas card (and more) inside 1890's "Triumphant Songs"
• Saturday's postcard: Christmas card from Raphael Tuck & Sons
• The Shepherd's Home: Postcard mailed in 1918
• Cute vintage Christmas postcard, plus the famed Otto Christmas Cats

2. Also on February 12, 1908, French mathematician Jacques Herbrand was born. He would only live to age 23, as he died in a mountain-climbing accident in the French Alps, but he left an important legacy in his field.
3. Of minor interest: I found a Mary Naomi (Snyder) Smith Figdore, who is buried in Spry, on Find A Grave. But she lived from 1911 to 2010, which means she was born three years after this postcard was sent. Her mother's name was Dollie V. Snyder, so that's a dead end, too.

The March 1956 SNAPS pamphlet

This is the cover of SNAPS, a four-page pamphlet that was included in a long-ago customer's package of photographic prints and negatives.

I believe this "issue" is from March 1956, because there is a small advertising mention of NBC's Screen Directors Playhouse, which only lasted one season and was originally broadcast during the 1955-1956 television season. So that makes this pamphlet about 58 years old.

The pamphlet mostly just encourages people to use their cameras often — for Easter morning, for spring blossoms, for school activities, and, yes, to take pictures of cats.¹ A sample of the advertising text:

"[P]ass out the latest snaps to your school friends. You'll want to capture on film those 'teen' years' activities."

The back page also serves as an order blank to purchase extra prints and enlargements from Crystal Photo Service. You could get one 5x7 for 60 cents, or three for $1.50. That might not seem like much, but 60 cents in 1956 is the equivalent of $5.00 today — for a single print.

Here are some additional pages and closeups from the pamphlet...

(Check out the white gloves the mother and daughter are wearing.)

Footnote

1. At this moment, the overwhelming majority of photos on my iPhone are of cats. I suspect I am not the only one for whom that is the case. This is especially easy to accomplish when you have five cats in your house.