Nadia Krige
twelfth Dec 2024
Studying Time: 4 minutes
Christmas playing cards are a dying social courtesy. With digital communication providing fast and simple options, it’s actually no shock.
For the extra sentimental amongst us, this could possibly be a moderately unhappy state of affairs. Nonetheless, when you’ve been hanging on to every Christmas card you’ve ever acquired, and perhaps even safeguarding these of earlier generations, you may be sitting on high of a miniature goldmine!
As Christmas playing cards turn out to be more and more novel, so their worth grows.
Let’s check out methods you may make cash from amassing Christmas playing cards.
How Christmas playing cards grew to become a factor
Maybe the very best place to begin our investigation is to go proper again to the very starting.
Though it could look like Christmas playing cards have all the time been round, they actually solely date again to the 1800s.
The primary ever Christmas card was created within the UK in 1843 by London-based illustrator John Calcott Horsley on behalf of Sir Henry Cole. Horsley designed and hand-coloured the unique, after which a complete of 1,000 have been lithographed. These playing cards have been offered at a shilling every.
The cardboard reveals a Christmas dinner with three generations of a household having fun with a Christmas celebration. The facet panels present charitable scenes with folks clothes and feeding the poor. Solely 12 of the unique 1,000 playing cards nonetheless in existence.
The most costly Christmas playing cards on the planet
Unsurprisingly, each their rarity and historic significance has made these playing cards extraordinarily invaluable.
In November 2001, Horsley’s unique hand-coloured Christmas card – the prototype upon which the 1,000 lithographed copies have been based mostly – was offered at public sale in Devizes for £20,000 and acquired by an nameless bidder. Cole had despatched this actual Christmas card to his grandmother. It additionally holds the Guinness World File for the costliest greeting card ever offered at public sale.
After all, this isn’t the one Christmas card that’s ever made its approach to public sale.
Earlier this yr, a bunch of 15 Christmas card designs by Salvador Dalí have been put up for public sale. The playing cards have been commissioned by the Spanish pharmaceutical laboratory Hoechst Ibérica between 1959 and 1976. They have been anticipated to lift as much as €1m at Artcurial’s Fashionable and Impressionist Artwork public sale in Paris.
Unsurprisingly, Christmas playing cards with a royal historical past additionally are inclined to rake in kilos. In 2017, assortment of 35 playing cards despatched by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh over a 40-year interval have been offered at public sale for £1,530.
How you can establish invaluable Christmas playing cards
Now, the possibilities that you’ve got certainly one of Horsley’s unique 1,000 lithographed Christmas playing cards in your possession are slim. And so are the possibilities that you’ve got any designed by different well-known artists or despatched by the royal household.
Nonetheless, this doesn’t imply that your assortment is devoid of worth.
Right here are some things that would spell massive bucks in terms of previous Christmas playing cards:
Age
Since vacation and birthday playing cards are thought of by most to be nothing greater than sentimental ephemera, it’s commonplace for them to finish up within the trash as soon as festivities are over. Which implies it’s terribly laborious to seek out actually, actually previous Christmas playing cards.
If, nonetheless, you observed that there may be a pair gathering mud in your storeroom, go have a little bit of a rummage.
Clearly, the older the specimen the extra invaluable will probably be.
Situation
One other massive determiner of worth is how well-preserved the Christmas card in query is. You probably have one relationship again to 1890, but it surely’s torn and pale, the probability of it bringing in any cash is near zero.
If nonetheless, the cardboard has been saved rigorously, shielded from any attainable harm and nonetheless seems to be as pristine because the day it arrived on the mantlepiece, you might simply be in luck!
Paintings
What’s on the cardboard? If it’s an unique paintings by a reasonably to extremely profitable artist (who is aware of – perhaps your nice grandparents have been well-connected), the cardboard could be of curiosity to collectors.
One other factor to be aware of on the duvet of the cardboard in query is whether or not it depicts an historic occasion or well-liked character. Examples of the previous could embrace something alluding to one of many World Wars, whereas the latter might maybe come within the type of basic, classic illustrations of anybody from Santa Clause to Mickey Mouse.
What’s inside
Lastly, even when the well-preserved outdoors is considerably unremarkable, the within could also be the place the magic lies.
You probably have a Christmas card with an ink-on-paper movie star signature, its worth is sort of certain to shoot up. After all, there’s additionally a hierarchy to think about right here. You probably have one signed by Queen Elizabeth herself, it’s in all probability fairly a bit extra invaluable than one bearing the signature of your native radio station’s host.
The place to purchase and promote
Tickled by the thought of creating wealth from Christmas playing cards? We recommend you begin your profession on eBay!
It’s fairly simple to arrange an account and also you’ll even have full management over your auctions and gross sales.
At the moment, classic Christmas playing cards are promoting from something between £0.50 and £539.12.
After you have your foot within the door and your assortment begins rising, you might need to examine which auctioneers might enable you to discover the very best bidders on your collections.