Greeting Cards

Greeting cards are folded or flat cards printed with a picture or message, sent for birthdays, holidays, thanks and sympathy. Paper, printing and envelope shape decide how a card looks in the hand and how it travels by mail.

How to choose Greeting Cards

  • Blank or written. A blank inside leaves room for your own words; a printed message does the talking for you.
  • Letterpress. The design is pressed from an inked, raised surface into soft paper, so it often leaves a slight dent you can feel.
  • Envelope size. To be mailable, an envelope must be at least 5 inches long and 3.5 inches high, and no thinner than 0.007 inch.
  • Postcards. To mail at the postcard rate, a card may be no bigger than 4.25 by 6 inches.

About Greeting Cards

Greeting cards are printed cards sent to mark an occasion or say something personal, and in the US they grew into an industry with Christmas cards. Boston lithographer Louis Prang is credited with the first commercial American Christmas cards.

Prang used chromolithography, a color printing process prized for subtle shading and detail, and by the 1880s he was turning out more than five million cards a year. In Britain, Henry Cole had helped set up the penny post, and that cheap postage encouraged people to mail seasonal greetings.

Store blank cards flat in a drawer, away from damp and direct sun, since both slowly damage paper.

At a glance

Main types
Birthday, holiday, thanks, sympathy, blank notes
Made from
Heavy paper stock, cotton paper, envelopes
Label terms
Letterpress, blank inside, lined envelope

Greeting Cards questions

Why do square greeting cards need extra postage?

USPS treats a letter as nonmachinable when its length divided by its height is under 1.3 or over 2.5, and a square envelope has a ratio of 1. Letters in that group cannot go through the automated sorters at the regular letter rate. Ask at the counter or add the extra postage before you drop a square card in the box.

When was the first Christmas card sent?

In London in 1843, when Henry Cole asked the artist John Callcott Horsley to design one. Cole had a thousand copies printed, each with space for a handwritten greeting. They sold for a shilling, a steep price then, and the venture flopped, though the idea took hold within a few decades.

Can a card with a ribbon or button go through the mail?

Yes, but it usually costs more. USPS calls a letter nonmachinable when it cannot run through the automated sorters. Clasps, strings, buttons or similar closures put a card in that group, and so does a lumpy filling or a card too stiff to bend. Take it to the counter and pay the extra postage there.

Sources: United States Postal Service Domestic Mail Manual; Victoria and Albert Museum.

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