V-mails are back!

I'm pleased to report that I now have Vintage WWII V-mail stationery sets back in my etsy shop once again. These fantastic vintage papers were used by American soldiers and their loved ones in World War II to correspond via letters.

You can read more about V-mails in a previous blog post, or go have a look at them on etsy... and happy letter writing!

1940s aerogramme-style Air Mail with wings

What a find! I'm so excited about this World War II era stationery, just listed in my etsy shop. The little envelope with wings is my favorite part!



This is a complete original set of Wessel's Air Mail Envo-Letters, in original packaging. The paper folder contains 12 sheets of aerogramme-style stationery, which fold up into their own envelopes. The 1940s air mail graphics are stunning! Though they do not have a specific date on them, I'm near certain they are from the 1940s, roughly in the World War 2 era.



The packaging folders do show some wear and age spots, as you can see in the photos, but the envo-letters contained inside are in excellent shape, perfect for modern retro letter writing (or for the collector, of course). Above you see the folded sheets on the outside, with the excellent red and blue air mail stripes...



...and they are mostly blank on the inside, except for the fantastic Air Mail with wings graphic shown in close-up at the top of this post.

For aficionados of vintage writing instruments, I have enjoyed these in my own letter-writing, and can attest that this vintage paper is very fountain pen friendly, and takes fountain pen ink beautifully.

These are not to be confused with V-Mails, which Wessel also manufactured - V-Mails were for correspondence with American troops stationed overseas, but these Envo-Letters looked to be for any international air mail. (I also sell vintage WWII V-Mail sets, too.)



I have a few of these sets in the original packaging - fun to look at, and fun to write on. Check out an example of one I sent internationally a few months ago.

Happy Independence Day!

Vintage WWII Patriotic stationery

As my American readers all know, today is a big holiday in the USA: Independence Day, also known as the Fourth of July. We celebrate our independence (from big bad England, way back in 1776) and it tends to be a day of patriotism... and picnics and fireworks!



No picnics or fireworks for me today, but I'm certainly enjoying the holiday - and I thought I'd share this vintage WWII patriotic stationery with you. It's one of those things I thought I'd blogged about long ago, but was shocked to discover today that I haven't blogged about it at all! These sets are copyright 1942 and are the real deal WWII originals, and of course I fell head over heals for the slogan on the package:



"It is your patriotic duty to write to the boys in our armed forces!" I have a few of these left in my etsy shop: Vintage WWII Patriotic stationery.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day today!

Red, white, and blue

I thought some good old red, white, and blue was in order for the season.

This is a letter I wrote last night on some vintage Wessel "envo-letters" stationery. It is WWII era, dates around the same time as the V-mails, but notes in packaging that it can be sent anywhere, not just to and from U.S. troops (as was the intent for V-mail.)



And yes, I do use the stickers I sell in my shop for my own correspondence, too.

To all my American readers, have a wonderful 4th of July holiday!

Vintage stationery for sale

I've got a bunch of vintage stationery items for sale in my shop right now, and I just thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you here in a clickable treasury, above. Any of the photos will lead you right to the listings.

The three I'm most excited about:

Teen Tattle vintage 1950s stationery (sold)

Vintage 1980s Cabbage Patch Kids cards

1940s Vintage Basildon Air Mail paper

All three of those are original, one-of-a-kind items, so if you like it, grab it, because I don't have multiples of those!

Lots more vintage stationery coming...

One of this summer's big themes for me will be listing a lot of vintage stationery for sale in The Missive Maven etsy shop. I've been collecting stationery all year (of course!) but it takes a long time to photograph and list it properly. If you're into vintage stationery, stay tuned to this blog, my twitter feed, and of course the aforementioned etsy shop, because I'll be listing multiple items each week.



One of my most recent listings is for this lovely complete set of Vintage Current Meadow Medly notecards. I've got an awful lot of Current stationery items to list, so if you like vintage Current, you're in luck!



I'll also be listing some lovely older vintage items from the 1940s and 1950s. Literally as I was writing this blog post about a lovely 1940s stationery set I just listed about an hour ago, it sold. So I won't tempt you with more photos. But if you're into some of the older stuff, again, keep an eye out! I guess I'm pricing things well because they're selling really quickly.

I'm off to the post office soon to mail some etsy orders AND pick up the new Miles Davis and Edith Piaf stamps just released today - yippee! I'm as excited about these new stamps as for any released in 2012.

Vintage Current Berry and Jam Notes

I just listed some lovely vintage/new summer stationery in my etsy shop: Vintage Current Berry and Jam Notes. It's a complete pack of 12 vintage Current notecards and envelopes in their original packaging, from the 1970s or 1980s, featuring summer berries on the front and a recipe on the back for how to make jam from that fruit. The pack includes 3 each of 4 designs: strawberry, blueberry, currant, and blackberry.



Do you get hungry looking at these ripe summer berries? I do! They put me in mind for summer letter-writing. I'm not a cook myself, but it seems like a double gift to send a letter and a recipe all in one with these cards.

Edit: oooops. That was fast! They're sold out already.

Vintage original WWII V-mail stationery

UPDATE:


Now I really do have these back in stock, and a few sets to sell so more than just one. I love these things!!

************************************************************



More shop listings promised, and now I'm finally delivering. I am so, so, so excited about these WWII V-mails!! I've been writing letters on them for a while, but I just came into a fresh stock of them, and have more than I can use, so now I'm selling lots of 4 in my etsy shop:

Vintage original WWII V-mails



During WWII, one of the best ways for U.S. soldiers to correspond with their loved ones back home was a new-fangled invention called the V-mail, short for Victory-mail. One wrote on the sheets included in this listing, and in order to save space on airmail planes, the V-mails were microfilmed, sent on film via airmail, and then reproduced at the destination.



My etsy listing is for four (4) original WWII V-mail letter sheets. They are still usable in the postal service -- I've written many letters on them myself! They function as an aerogramme or fold-and-mail; you simply write on the writing surface (shown unfolded in the last photo), and then fold and seal as directed. My items include the original gum, which should still be good (but for modern postal sorting machines, I do recommend reinforcing the seal with tape or something, just to be on the safe side - and I tape the sides shut, too, so they don't get caught in the sorting machines).

These are NOT reproductions, but actual papers from the 1940s printed during WWII. There is even a field for the censor's stamp. They take fountain pen ink beautifully, and the paper is of a good quality for all kinds of writing instruments.



They measure 5 5/8 x 9 3/8 folded as shown, and I will send them folded as shown (original packaging folds) in a large envelope.

Write a letter on a piece of history!
Vintage original WWII V-mails

If you want to see examples of some of the letters I've written on them, check out these past blog posts:
Modern letter on vintage V-mail
V-mail with vintage stamps

Vintage bee illustrated envelope

This vintage stationery set was one of my favorite fantastic eBay finds. The paper itself is sort of a textured pink - I haven't photographed that, as it's not all that special - but the envelopes are amazing! This is the bee design, and there are 3 others with similar styles: illustrated and printed all over both sides.



These photos are fairly true to the color - sort of a yellowish green. Of course I love the directive to "Mr. Postman."



The back of the envelope is seriously amazing! I confess I am a bit of a sucker for puns, so I love all this cheesy word-play. And I adore the bee who is lounging on top of a mushroom, brandishing a fountain pen, with a cute little ink blot below.

My favorite verse is in the pink box:
"Is writing notes a thing you love,
or do you need a 'lil shove?
I'll furnish the shove!"

Tee hee. Bee well, springtime readers.
Now buzz off and go write a letter!

Postal Amsterdam

I took quite a few postal and letter-writing related photos while in Amsterdam, of course, and I can't resist sharing them with you because I got such a kick out of them. I love anything mail-related, and it's always interesting to see how it works in different countries.



Here's the desk where I sent postcards. I sent out 20; that's all I could afford on my trip budget!



And here's a bright red mailbox, similar to the one where my postcards went out. This shiny one didn't have any graffiti, but a lot of the mailboxes did.



I came across this more antique-style mailbox in the Vondelpark.



Can any of my Dutch readers translate this? It was on a lot of mail slots. Some said Nee / Nee. I know yes and no, but I'm not sure what the rest refers to. Flyers and junk mail, perhaps?

UPDATE: Thank you to Henderica, for her translation!

The Nee/Nee or Ja/Nee stickers are :
first bit just No if you don't want advertising folders or non addressed mail
The second bit Yes or No is usually for if you want local free newspapers

Just a cute silver snail I had to photograph...



This is the very cool 2-story stationery store where I bought the Eclat D'Ors paper I blogged about yesterday. I should have taken a picture of the stairs - sooo narrow! Such is Amsterdam.



The stationery store also had an awesome display on writing...



...with all kinds of vintage paper stuff.

Hope you enjoy!

Trumpet stamps

Here's another one of those fine vintage Mork & Mindy postalettes. On this one I chose special stamps for the recipient, who plays trumpet. (Could you guess?)

Mork from Ork vintage postalette

This gem came from a fabulous eBay find (ah, eBay, you are my budgetary downfall): a mint condition, NIB (new in box) set of Mork from Ork rainbow postalettes, from the show Mork & Mindy.

Yes, folks, I remember watching Mork & Mindy as a child - I adored that TV show, and it gave me a lifelong admiration for Robin Williams. This postalette shows Robin Williams in his Mork role, wearing his space suit, and the words are his catch phrase. I'm stumped by the spelling, though, because I recall it sounded like "na-noo" and not na-no. Oh well, discrepancies aside, they're fabulous. The moon and stars sticker came with the original set to seal the postalette, but I gave it a little help with some removable tape.



As if these weren't awesome enough, they're covered with rainbows! The rainbow element wraps around the front, on the address side. This one deserved some very cool stamps, so I tried to go with either the rainbow theme or a space theme, to complement the postalette itself. These are some of my very favorite stamps, too. On the left is the "It all depends on ZIP CODE" mail transportation stamp (of course I love the meta mail theme, but the rainbow puffy artwork is delish), in the middle is the Expo 74/Preserve the Environment stamp with artwork by Peter Max, and on the right is the Love stamp with hearts forming the Os in rainbow colors. The Project Mercury stamp is my nod to the space theme.

This was a fun postalette to send and construct; so far I've only sent the one, but I think I've got 11 left. Hmm...

Vintage stationery spotlight: Laff Letters

Tonight I'll share a few views of some of my favorite vintage stationery (a la eBay): the WWII-era Laff Letters.



As the box says, "letter and envelope in one," so pretty much a postalette or fold-and-mail concept.



The back of each design has a joke that tends to be racist or sexist or both... I guess they are a product of their time.



I love the return address space in this "bulletin from" design, and the "atoms for peace" vintage stamp is one of my favorites.



I sent the above "last minute news" design to my late grandfather about a year ago - I tried to use a WWII/veterans theme in the stamps, or at least stamps that made sense for his lifetime.

Vintage Timely Correspondence Ensemble

It's been a while since I've blogged about any of my vintage papers, so I'll return to that today. This is the lovely "Timely Correspondence Ensemble" I snatched up on eBay eons ago. The box is a little worn, and the "all-occasion captions" weren't present, but otherwise it's great.

(Oh - if you buy old stationery much, you'll come across the problem of gummed envelopes. I find if you work them very gently with a proper letter opener, you can pry them open while still retaining enough of the glue to reseal. Guess I'll have to demonstrate that in photos sometime!)



If you've read this blog for a while, you know how much I love meta-themed stationery - about the postal service or letter writing. So I'm very charmed with the little letter-writing scene here. The papers, folded, fit inside the cards with the writing scene, and all fit inside the matching plain blue envelopes (not shown).

This is very similar to the White Lace stationery ensemble about which I blogged back in December, with the old-style blue paper. It takes fountain pen ink BEAUTIFULLY, dries quickly and hardly ever smudges, even with my most saturated, slow-drying ink.

And yes, as I write this, I'm well aware that my own correspondence these days is hardly timely!

(eek.)

Modern letter on vintage V-Mail

Here's another vintage original V-Mail with a recent, modern letter. For double fun, I used Noodler's new V-mail series ink, Midway Blue.



You gotta go for some vintage stamps on V-mails, too.

I would've written sooner...

I've been out of town all day. Sorry for the late post.

I love this vintage checklist, that came in from a correspondent a week or two ago. He then wrote me an excellent letter a few days later. Thought I'd share the amusing fun... and it should be noted that my guess is that when this paper was printed, "computer" was, if not a novelty, much less commonplace than now! I'm thinking this came from the early to mid 80s.

Hallmark Muppet stationery red envelope

Finally wrote a letter with my precious new/old vintage Muppet stationery. The envelopes are just plain red. I used some gold glimmer mist to make this sparkle, and of course I had to use a Muppet stamp.



The stickers on the back of the envelope did not come with this set - they're much newer; I found them in a store last month.

V-mail with vintage stamps

V-mails are basically WWII-era fold-and-mail postalette type things. They were created as a means to get letters from home efficiently to soldiers overseas. Someday (one of my famous somedays) I will photograph the inside, too - they are very neat. And they still make great letter-writing stationery, with that vintage flair, and take fountain pen ink well.

And I love to use vintage stamps on 'em.

Vintage postal goodness for the LWA

Vintage 1971 envelope from my grandfather, who used to work for the postal service. I found a stash in his house and he said take 'em.

With vintage stamps, LWA button and Sheaffer Agio F (filled with Noodler's Eternal Hunter Green). I broke out the special stamps for Donovan, one of the Letter Writers Alliance founders.