Saturday, January 15, 2011

Emerald City Post Office

Many Oz tchotchke collectors have a fondness for the dozens and dozens of Wizard of Oz ornaments and memorabilia that have been issued by Hallmark Cards. But perhaps one of the earliest is this little-known set of Emerald City stationery.

It seems like few Oz collectors are even aware of it, and I have yet to see it turn up on eBay or an Oz club auction. But in any case, here it is in today's blog. I think it's very attractive!


I love the illustration. While the image is clearly inspired by the MGM Emerald City, it was not an MGM licensing deal, but a Hallmark produced original. The artwork on the folder is signed "R. Hass." There is no copyright date on the set, but I believe I got it around 1979 after hearing about it from long-time Oz Club secretary Fred Meyer. I immediately sat down with the yellow pages and called every Hallmark store in Albuquerque (where I grew up), asking if they had a set - only one store did, and they had only one set.

Inside the handsome folder (shown above) were envelopes in two different shades of green and sixteen pieces of printed Emerald City writing paper (shown below).


The downside of e-mail is we don't see much Ozzy stationery anymore. But then again, I obviously didn't use my set for writing letters! Go figure!


Our sale of the week features all three of our Wonderland of Oz titles at 20% off! Hungry Tiger Press has been restoring this long-lost comic strip and we currently have three volumes available: The Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, and The Emerald City of Oz. Click on any of the titles to take a look!

5 comments:

David Maxine said...

UPDATE: Apparently the artist is named Robert Haas. It seems the image from the front of the folder was used for a greeting card as well.

Vincent Desjardins said...

It's beautiful! Thanks for sharing it!

Glenn Ingersoll said...

I would have saved your letter!

Except I think my mother threw out my box of correspondence at some point after I moved out. She seemed to have decided to clean out the house and get rid of stuff and I haven't found the box I'd saved all my letters in. She denied she threw it out, but by the time I asked about it I couldn't really depend on the accuracy of her responses. Facts and recent events were escaping her.

Aaron Pacentine said...

This is very beautifully put together David. I have never seen it before. I like it the most because it really captures the set and the style of the classic M-G-M movie that we all love!

scott o. said...

I have a set of that stationary somewhere around here....