Do people still send paper greeting cards?

“I most certainly do,” said Carl Christian Gross of Harboro, PA. Despite the Digital Age and the availability of e-cards, Gross and millions of other people still send cards to mark special events.

Sending cards to mark holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries has been a tradition for centuries. The greeting card museum, a virtual guide to the industry and history of cards, says that the oldest greeting card in existence is a valentine from the 1400s!

Cards were a novelty reserved for the wealthy until the introduction of postage stamps in the 1840s. Better printing techniques soon created mass-produced cards, and the industry took off.

According to the Greeting Card Association, currently seven billion cards are exchanged per year in the US.

The excitement of getting a paper card in the mail is something that e-mail cards can’t quite duplicate. One person who understands that is Steve Anderson. He created his own business, Your Thank You Card, to produce hand-made greetings.

“More than ever, our mailboxes are filled with bills and junk. This makes getting a card all the more exciting,” Anderson said.

He and other people save cards, while e-mails are deleted. Anderson, an acupuncturist by trade, remembers sending one of his cards to a patient going through grueling physical therapy.

He said, “The next time I saw her she threw her arms around me and thanked me profusely for the card I had sent to her. She was in tears.”

It’s not just small, craft card makers like Anderson that are trying to raise sales. Hallmark, the best-known manufacturer that celebrates its 100th birthday in 2010, makes 19,000 cards and related products each year, like party goods, ornaments, and gift wrap, as part of its $4.5 billion in annual sales.

Last year, the greeting card giant introduced Sound Cards, which allows people to record their own message, taking the personal aspect to a whole new level. According to a story in the Times Record News, Hallmark hopes that a recordable card will keep it “relevant in a modern world where e-mail, cell phones and streaming video keep people connected over long distances.”

The first people to send the cards were children with mothers deployed overseas, emphasizing the one-of-a-kind, human connection that opening up a card creates. “The Sound Cards have turned around a card business that had remained flat for several years as e-mails and e-cards became more popular.”

E-cards, more convenient, and cheaper, will continue to grow in popularity. But paper cards will never be replaced.

Said Anderson, “Sometimes simple heartfelt words expressed in writing can have a profound effect on a person’s spirit.”