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28-480: 42°13′54″N 71°10′08″W  /  42.2316°N 71.1690°W  / 42.2316; -71.1690 The Rust Craft Greeting Card Company was an American greeting card and printing company and owner of television stations . The company was founded in a bookstore in Kansas City, Missouri , in 1906 by its owner, Fred Winslow Rust. The company's first Christmas card was printed on heavy tan paper and included

56-480: A brief message in two colors. The success of the Christmas card grew into a business letters, postcards, and greeting cards with envelopes. Rust revolutionized the use of the "French Fold," which turned a single piece of paper into a card by folding it into quarters. They were the first company to sell greeting cards with a fitted envelope. Rust was soon joined by his brother Donald. Fred then began to focus more on

84-408: A different material, while magnetic plate tooling has a cylinder that has magnets placed in it, and an engraved metal plate is attached or wrapped around the base cylinder holding onto it by the force of the magnets. Dinking is a manufacturing process. Dinking uses special dies called dinking dies, which are hollow cutters. The edges of the dies are usually beveled about 20° and sharpened. The material

112-463: A growing taste for handmade cards made it economically possible for smaller niche companies to set up in competition with the large established brands. Innovative companies such as Nobleworks and Meri Meri grew from their foundation in the 1980s to becoming significant influencers in the industry. A thriving market was established for what were now called "alternative" greeting cards. The name stuck even though these "alternative" cards grew to embrace

140-631: A hand written greeting.   The custom of sending greeting cards can be traced back to the ancient Chinese who exchanged messages of good will to celebrate the New Year , and to the early Egyptians , who conveyed their greetings on papyrus scrolls. By the early 15th century, handmade paper greeting cards were being exchanged in Europe. The Germans are known to have printed New Year's greetings from woodcuts as early as 1400, and handmade paper Valentines were being exchanged in various parts of Europe in

168-531: A holiday card that he could send to his friends and acquaintances. In the 1860s, inventor Hugh Pierce Jr., inspired by the Christmas card, invented the Birthday card . Companies like Marcus Ward & Co , Charles Goodall & Son , and Charles Bennett began the mass production of greeting cards. They employed well-known artists such as Kate Greenaway and Walter Crane as illustrators and card designers. The extensive Laura Seddon Greeting Card Collection from

196-597: A khaki fabric card appeared in 1899 during the first Christmas of the Boer War and was issued by a business in Glasgow. In New Zealand, it was not uncommon to receive a khaki greeting card, even the premier, RJ Seddon is said to have received one. An example of a fabric card is held by the Auckland War Memorial Museum , and is a small square of fabric with a heavy fringe created by threads with

224-491: A relatively expensive, handmade and hand-delivered gift to a popular and affordable means of personal communication, due largely to advances in printing, mechanization, and a reduction in postal rates with the introduction of the postage stamp . This was followed by new trends like Christmas cards , the first of which appeared in published form in London in 1843 when Sir Henry Cole hired artist John Calcott Horsley to design

252-560: A rotary tool that will cut out shapes, make perforations or creases, or even cut the sheet or web into smaller parts. A series of gears will force the die to rotate at the same speed as the rest of the press, ensuring that any cuts the die makes line up with the printing on the material. The machines used for this process can incorporate multiple "stations" that die cut a particular shape in the material. In each of these stations lie one or more of these geared tools or printing cylinders, and some machines use automatic eye registration to make sure

280-787: A summer house in Cohasset, Massachusetts . He died in 1949 at the age of 73. Donald had two sons with his wife, and later had four grandchildren. He died in 1961 at 84, having spent his final years in Cohasset. Greeting card Greeting cards are usually packaged using an envelope and come in a variety of styles. There are both mass-produced and handmade versions available and they may be distributed by hundreds of companies large and small. While typically inexpensive, more elaborate cards with die-cuts , pop-ups, sound elements or glued-on decorations may be more expensive. Hallmark Cards and American Greetings , both U.S.-based companies, are

308-666: A total cost of more than US$ 7 billion. A counter card in the U.S. typically sells for $ 2 to $ 4. Boxed cards, which are a popular option for Christmas cards or other times when multiple cards are sent, tend to cost less. The Greeting Card Association is a U.S. trade organization representing the interests of greeting card and stationery manufacturers. John Beeder, former president of the Greeting Card Association, says greeting cards are effective tools to communicate important feelings to people you care about: "Anyone feels great when they receive an unexpected card in

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336-599: A vast range of styles and ultimately changed the look of the industry. The largest recorded number of greeting cards sent to a single person went to Craig Shergold , a beneficiary/victim of chain letters and later chain emails. In the United Kingdom , an estimated one billion pounds are spent on greeting cards every year, with the average person sending 55 cards annually. In the United States, approximately 6.5 billion greeting cards are bought each year, at

364-414: Is that the flatbed is not as fast but the tools are cheaper. This process lends itself to smaller production runs where it is not as easy to absorb the added cost of a rotary die. Rotary die cutting is die cutting using a cylindrical die on a rotary press and may be known as a rotary die cutter or RDC. A long sheet or web of material will be fed through the press into an area known as a "station" which holds

392-492: The Manchester Metropolitan University gathers 32,000 Victorian and Edwardian greeting cards and 450 Valentine's Day cards dating from the early nineteenth century, printed by the major publishers of the day. Technical developments like color lithography in 1930 propelled the manufactured greeting card industry forward. Humorous greeting cards, known as studio cards , became popular in

420-405: The metalworking and leather industries, the process is known as clicking and the machine may be referred to as a clicking machine . When a dinking die or dinking machine is used, the process is known as dinking . Commonly produced items using this process include gaskets , labels , tokens, corrugated boxes , and envelopes . Die cutting started as a process of cutting leather for

448-571: The Father of the American Christmas Card. A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin cardboard , typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope . Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. In some places, one can send a postcard for a lower fee than a letter . Stamp collectors distinguish between postcards (which require a postage stamp ) and postal cards (which have

476-489: The creative and sales aspects of the company while Donald managed the manufacturing and finances. In time, the offerings grew to include cards for holidays including Valentine's Day, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, and Thanksgiving. In addition, cards were produced with bon voyage and travel messages, and even cards with messages in Braille . The brothers eventually retired from the book store and moved to Massachusetts to focus on

504-438: The cuts and/or printing are lined up with one another when lower tolerances are required. Dies used in rotary die cutting are either solid engraved dies, adjustable dies, or magnetic plate tooling. Engraved dies have a much higher tolerance and are machined out of a solid steel bar normally made out of tool steel. Adjustable dies have removable blades that can be easily replaced with other blades, either due to wear or to cut

532-546: The early to mid-15th century, with the oldest Valentine in existence being in the British Museum . The card was written to Bonne of Armagnac by her husband, Charles Duke of Orleans , who was imprisoned in the Tower of London at the time. Not surprisingly, its message is rather downbeat. Its opening reads: ‘I am already sick of love / my very gentle Valentine.’ By the 1850s, the greeting card had been transformed from

560-481: The good will of its product trademarks, rebranding the card line to Rust Craft Greeting Card Company, with the television division known as Rust Craft Broadcasting. The company remained there until 1980 when it was purchased by Ziff Davis the year before for $ 89 million, who also owned Norcross Greeting Card Company . The printing assets were secondary to Ziff Davis, which mainly wanted Rust Craft for its six small-market television stations . Rust Craft's manufacturing

588-609: The greeting cards. At first the company was located at 1000 Washington Street in Boston's South End neighborhood. Needing more space, the company built a new facility on Rustcraft Road in nearby Dedham, Massachusetts in 1954. was at the time the largest greeting card factory in the world on what is today Rustcraft Road. The company was known officially as United Printers and Publishers until 1962, when with its purchase and founding of television stations and some radio station purchases beginning several years before, began to trade off

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616-511: The late 1940s and 1950s. In the 1970s, Recycled Paper Greetings , a small company needing to establish a competing identity against the large companies like Hallmark Cards , began publishing humorous, whimsical card designs with the artist's name credited on the back. This was away from what was known as the standard look (sometimes called the Hallmark look.) During the 1980s, reduced costs of small batch printing and die cutting together with

644-439: The mail. For me, there’s nothing like a greeting card to send a special message. I’m proud to be a part of an industry that not only keeps people connected, but uses both imagery and the power of words to help us express our emotions.” Since 1988, the Greeting Card Association has held an annual award ceremony for the best greetings cards published that year. The awards are called Louies in recognition of Louis Prang , described as

672-539: The postage pre-printed on them). While a postcard is usually printed and sold by a private company, individual or organization, a postal card is issued by the relevant postal authority (often with pre-printed postage). Die cutting (web) Die cutting is the general process of using a die to shear webs of low-strength materials, such as rubber , fibre , foil , cloth , paper , corrugated fibreboard , chipboard , paperboard , plastics , pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes , foam , and sheet metal . In

700-446: The shoe industry in the mid-19th century. It is now sophisticated enough to cut through just one layer of a laminate , so it is now used on labels, postage stamps , and other stickers ; this type of die cutting is known as kiss cutting . Die cutting can be done on either flatbed or rotary presses . Rotary die cutting is often done inline with printing . The primary difference between rotary die cutting and flatbed die cutting

728-580: The two largest producers of greeting cards in the world today. In Western countries and increasingly in other societies, many people traditionally mail seasonally themed cards to their friends and relatives in December. Many service businesses also send cards to their customers in this season, usually with a universally acceptable non-religious message such as "happy holidays" or "season's greetings." Counter cards : Greeting cards that are sold individually. This contrasts with boxed cards . The concept of

756-740: Was left of the two companies. At the time it went out of business, it had a Canadian affiliate, Rust Craft Ltd. A collection of archived Rust Craft and Norcross cards, along with other archival materials dating back to pre- Declaration times in the mid-18th century, was donated to the Smithsonian Institution after the company went out of business. The Rust brothers were born in Belfast, Maine , but moved to Kansas City as boys. Fred wrote and published three volumes of poetry. He lived in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife and son and had

784-542: Was moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania where Norcross already have a facility. Windsor Communications soon purchased Rust Craft and Norcross when Ziff Davis spun them off , while retaining Rust Craft Broadcasting. Windsor spent $ 10 million in 1981 to close the Dedham plant, incentivize employees to stay on, and to move operations. They struggled with heavy competition, and with only 6–7% of market share, eventually went bankrupt. American Greetings Corporation purchased what

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