Wherefore art thou?

"The rose is red, the violet's blue,The honey's sweet, and so are you. Thou art my love and I am thine; I drew thee to my Valentine".     Yes it's that time of year again when we send notes of our affection to the one we love, and thanks to Sir Rowland Hill's postal reforms and the invention of the Penny Black stamp in c. 1840, we can send them anonymously. Such was the popularity of sending a Valentine card in mid-February that over 400,000 were sent in 1842.  According to legend there are several Christian martyrs who deserve the credit for the name given to this annual celebration. The most likely would seem to be a priest who was martyred by the emperor Claudius Gothicus II for befriending his jailor's daughter and sending her a letter signed "from your Valentine". The actual middle of the month holiday dates back to the Roman celebration of the coming of Spring, pairing off men and women with fertility rights and other Roman goings on, called Lupercalia, which name was changed by Pope Gelasius at the end of the 5th century to St Valentine. But it was the development of the postal service worldwide that led to the frenzy of activity in all forms of card communication. From then the simple postcard became as immediate a message service as we count the internet today. Plain postcards had been introduced in 1870 and in 1894 the Royal Mail gave permission to British publishers to manufacture them as a commercial and advertising medium. In those days we had the luxury of up to seven postal deliveries each day so likening it to emails is not too much of a stretch. Today the postcard is another collectable. Those that follow are called 'deltiologists' and there are as many guides to price in this field as any other. For example look for any without a dividing line on the back. They will be before 1902, but beware.  Believe it or not there are fakes. On a brighter note let's finish the Valentine verse from the beginning:- "The lot was cast and then I drew, And Fortune said it shou'd be you." There's romance for you.