Christmas card of heavier cardboard, and rounded edges. Missing right bottom corner. Artist and date unknown. Circa 1890s – 1910.  Size:  About 6 x 4 and 1/2.”

Price:  $6.00

“May Christmas Joys be Scattered round Thy head.”

Here’s an unlikely looking Christmas card, and it continues the topic of a few posts ago – non-traditional cards. No snow, no trimmed tree, no manger scene or Santa Claus, but instead some beautiful daisies, along with a summery card, and a tennis racquet in the middle of it all. This is for when you’re hoping for summer to return, to get back to the courts. Christmas joys scattered round thy head – like tennis balls you loft before the serve or the shots coming at you? I like the “card within a card” idea. It’s very nicely done, with the shadow included. You just naturally want to open that card up all the way, to see what it might say inside. There’s an old piece of gauze-type tape running along the top back edge, which you can see a little of here, along with some glue marks on the back. This might have been inserted in one of those old photo albums with the sort-of built in paper frames on each page, then taped to the back. But anyway, this was a must-have since it is so unusual.