Whitman Picture Stationery for Children

Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing Company, 1920. NA. Very Good. N.d., circa 1920. An envelope housing the stationery. Our set presently has five unused pieces of stationery, each of which is a folded sheet, with a color printed vignette on the top of the first of four pages for the child to write his note. We have only three envelopes though. We do not know how many pieces the set would have had originally. Our guess is a half dozen, or six. None of our pieces repeats one of the ten color illustrations on the outer envelope. We would guess that there were several different sets issued over a period of years, or simultaneously, or like a pack of baseball cards, the sets came with a random selection of maybe two dozen illustrations. As there is only a single OCLC First Search institutional holding, that at William and Mary, and that contains no details (and it has a slightly different title too, that being, Whitman Picture Stationery for Young Folk, more research is required than we have the time and resources to conduct. The outer envelope is 14.5 by 22 cm. The stationery is 13.5 by 10 cm, when the sheet is closed, or for each page. The mailing envelopes are 7.5 by 10 cm. While we are missing pieces, between the illustrations on the outer envelope and those on our actual stationery pieces, we have a copy that probably has close to all the illustrations issued with the stationery, or close to that number. The outer envelope has some foxing and other stains, obscured happily by the moire-like background design. Also one upper corner somewhat chewed. Our stationery and envelopes contained within are completely clean.