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    Vintage calendars are back!

     

     

    While more and more people can't imagine their lives without electronic devices like smartphones or smartwatches with so handy apps with so many useful options for organizing our days, a certain percent of mankind still prefer classic calendars with five or six rows and seven columns. Even more - there are many who find old calendars so visually appealing the insist to hang them on the walls even if they don't intend to use them as planners/organizers. So-called vintage calendars with designs, especially with designs from the second half of 19th and the first half of 20th century are coming back too.

     

    It seems people rediscovered the charm of the old masters like Walter Crane, Kate Greenaway, Eugene Grasset, Teo van Hoytema or Alphonse Mucha and try to include their old calendars in today's homes. We'll try to present these (and other) artists with their best work and by the way, enjoy in versatile trivia connected with their work.

    Did you know?

    • It's next to impossible to find who decided to use a seven-day-a-week pattern for the first time because we can trace it to ancient China, Japan, Babylon, and Egypt. It's very likely correlated with the seven major celestial objects (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) which also gave the names to the days in so many languages (Sunday - the day of the Sun, Monday - the day of the Moon, etc.) but we don't know if this is the case in all instances where weeks had seven days. Romans officially proclaimed seven-day week by Constantine in 321 AD.
    • Calendars made before the sixteenth century were not seen as planners but as perpetual tools representing the cyclic repetition of months,  seasons, holidays, ... Such calendar was meant to last for years and was not a consumable like a modern calendar which serves its purpose for a very limited time (typically one year only).
    • The development of printing technology made prints so cheap many companies started to print more or less useful/decorative items mainly for advertising. Calendars offered both - usefulness with a classic tabular scheme and prettiness with a picture and design which was often yet not always related to the advertiser. An addition of a quote, proverb or verse made such calendars widely available and affordable (often given for free) pieces which found a home in millions of houses all over the world.

  • Artists who created vintage calendars

    ...while these calendars were contemporary!

    13 de diciembre de 2023
    Baby's Lullaby Book - Mother Songs is a lovely booklet written by Charles Stuart Pratt (1854-1921) and illustrated by William Ladd Taylor (1854-1926). It's a book about months in the year. Each month is presented with a song written by Mr. Pratt and watercolors by Mr. Taylor. All songs are...
    27 de noviembre de 2023 · art nouveau,covers,vintage
    Giuseppe Eugenio Chiorino or GECH as he signed many of his works with an acronym of his full name, was born in 1871 about one hundred kilometers from Turin where he lived most of his life and died in 1941. He is somehow a mysterious person with a wide range of interests spanning from drawing...
    24 de octubre de 2023 · art nouveau,vintage,covers,posters
    Calendar from William L. Carqueville's Covers for Lippincott's? William L. Carqueville (1871-1946) is best known as a poster artist. He designed numerous covers for popular magazines in the USA, and today we'll check a full year of creations for Lippincott's. These covers are made in his...
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    Do we still need calendars?

    While it looks the electronic planners managed to connect into all spheres of our lives, a lot of us still prefer paper and pencil or simple table where we can instantly connect different projects, ideas, obligations, etc. in unlimited ways.

     

    Plus, classic calendar looks pretty as well.

  • Who are we?

    A group of enthusiasts who just love calendars, especially vintage ones, and everything related to them. You can reach us through comment section, by phone, or by e-mail.

     

    We are always open for suggestions or new ideas. If you got one, just shoot. And don't forget to tell your friends.

  • What Is This Site All About?

    It's obviously dedicated to vintage calendars, isn't it?

     

    Info for artists

     

    Everybody can make his or her own vintage calendar

    Vintage calendars gained a lot of popularity in recent years. Digital technology made possible to make your own calendars in just a few minutes (supposedly you are familiar with basic editing with popular programs like GIMP, Inkscape, etc.

     

    Even if you are absolute beginner, you can learn the necessary skills like resizing, digital retouching, copying and pasting, ... in only one working day. When you master the technical skills your imagination is the only limit.


    Info for collectors

     

    And everybody who likes a beautiful and practical side of vintage calendars

    Calendars are always useful and in spite of the rise of smart phones we still love their clarity and simplicity. But they are not only useful for taking notes and planning your time (which seems so often too short for everything we would like to squeeze in our limited days).

     

    They present a lovely decorative addition to our living environment. A beautiful picture of the calendar works like a window in the wall, it can sooth, stimulate or inspire. It's so no wonder so many original calendars from hundred or more years ago became collectible items.

     

    They are more affordable than most collectibles though. Most of them hardly surpass 50 US dollars. For everybody who might join the party we constructed this site about vintage calendars.