In a number of other threads I've covered many of ABNCo's forays into consumer products: engraved presidential portraits, sterling silver banknotes, philatelic commemorative panels, and the ABN Archive Series. But not many collectors know that American Bank Note also printed and marketed a series of greeting cards. Another forum member, Drawde, reminded me about these recently and was kind enough to provide scans of some of the cards and the sales brochure they used to publicize them. There were six themes, all of them drawing from ABNCo's vast stock of historic engraved vignettes: Ships, Railroads, Horses, Flowers, and Christmas.
When these came out in 1988 they cost roughly $1 a card for a box of 24, which was more than I wanted to spend. Each box had six designs and I was disappointed that all the engravings weren't shown on the brochure. That might have made a difference in my decision. Here are the six vignettes on the railroad cards from Drawde's collection.
ABNCo also had some alternate marketing strategies. A "short set" of 12 holiday cards was sold, wrapped in cellophane. It had the same six engravings, but instead of two-color cards like the box set, they were printed just in green ink. Circular gold foil stickers with the ABNCo logo were also included.
And what I didn't discover until later was that, like with early consumer products, ABNCo collaborated on their marketing. They produced a boxed set of four designs -- sort of a "best of" collection -- for Hallmark. These had die-cut frames that highlighted the vignettes. I don't know what these cost, but I would guess they were more expensive. I might have bought a set had I seen them in a store, but I don't think they were widely marketed. Luckily, another collector friend sent me some photos of his set.
dwhiz, I believe that vignette came from a page of engravings in the book "The Story of American Bank Note Company" by William Griffiths.
@Drawde I must say this thread did bring these to my attention. I only had the one which I listed above, now I have these on my want list. I did manage to buy one yesterday.
Have you guys seen these topics? They could all use a bump: Train vignettes from obsoletes Banknote background bonanza BABN railroad vignettes Meanwhile, back on topic -- ABNCo printed a lot of other Christmas cards that nobody knows about. These were in-house cards for executives and staff only. Even I wasn't aware of these until a friend sent me some photos while I was gathering information about the others above. Feast your eyes! These last ones were probably produced in the 1970s and I think they were the models that gave rise to the idea of creating greeting cards for public consumption.
Mike Bean (the former BEP Pressman) has a lot of the old ABN dies that he purchase to use on/with his "Spider Press". He has note cards with Trolley Car on them.
Mike brought his spider press to the FUN show this month in Tampa. I couldn't go, but a friend took some photos of his booth. (Mike's the one without the beard.) He had his note cards for sale -- $1 apiece, which is a great deal these days! I've actually got nearly all of these vignettes, either on note cards or on souvenir cards that he printed. I'll include the one with the trolley vignette.
I was interested to see these currently available. Approved proofs of a number of the greeting cards I posted earlier.
