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As a result of some of the extreme reactions and regular letters of complaint in the press, the cards began to fall out of favor.

Less is known about insulting valentines than sentimental ones, in part because very few survived. Most surviving examples are unsent cards found in the collections of printers and stationers.

The number might have been higher, but postmasters sometimes confiscated vinegar valentines, deeming them too vulgar for delivery.Postal workers were not the only ones rattled by their nastiness of vinegar cards.

Vinegar cards could be cheaply made by printing them on a single paper, folding and sealing them with a bit of wax. That said, Bradbeer adds that many mass-produced cards of the 19th century involved elaborate hand work in their assembly.

Cards could be sent to liars and cheats and flirts and alcoholics, while some cards mocked specific professions. Their grotesque drawings caricatured common stereotypes and insulted a recipient’s physical attributes, lack of a marriage partner or character traits.

This coincides with the growth of valentines as a popular form of communication, assisted by the development of a range of wider phenomena, such as cheap printing and fancy paper production,

The sheets, when folded and sealed with wax, could be mailed.

In the 1840s, when postal rates in Britain became standardized, commercially produced Valentine cards began to grow in popularity. The cards were flat paper sheets, often printed with colored illustrations and embossed borders.

Dating from 1382, Chaucer celebrated the engagement of the 15 year-old King Richard II to Anne of Bohemia via a poem, in which he wrote: For this was on St. Valentine’s Day, when every bird (fowl) cometh to choose his mate.

Celebrated in ancient Rome between 13 – 15 February, the festival is said to have involved lots of naked folk running through the streets spanking the backsides of young women with leather whips, supposedly to improve their fertility.