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Calendars
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Collecting Vintage Calendars
A calendar, like a watch is a system of telling time, typically days, weeks, months and years. Calendars are often a physical device usually made of paper. Vintage calendars can be classified into hanging calendars, postcard calendars and mechanical postcard calendars. So what makes a vintage calendar such a desirable collectible? The answer is usually the illustration, advertising or both.
As a form of advertising, calendars have been around since the early 1900s or earlier. Major corporations such as Coca Cola have been using calendars with advertising slogans to help sell their products for a very long time. A bright blue 1946 Coca Cola calendar with large yellow numbers at the top and the image of the Sprite Boy head has a value of $700.00. An earlier Coca Cola calendar dated 1926 with the image of a pretty girl tennis player and holding a glass of Coke has a value of over $1000.00.
No matter what they advertised, popular vintage calendars were given away. Most vintage calendars sell today for $5.00 to $25.00. Older calendars do bring higher prices because they did not survive in large quantities. Most paper collectibles such as Ink blotters, matchbooks, postcards, brochures and calendars were originally made to be discarded after use.
You can use vintage calendars to decorate the walls of your home. Most of the older calendars are colorful lithographed prints suitable for framing. Western scenes can be found featuring Native American Indians from the 1920s and 1930s. Other lithographed calendar prints that can be found are of Liberty calendars, trains, buildings (from your home town), producers of beer, wine and spirits, flowers, worlds fairs etc. A host of other advertising calendars exist and most of these beautiful old prints can be removed from the calendar, matted and framed.
Vintage calendars can be found at garage sales, antique stores, flea markets and our favorite place - eBay.
