Vintage seed packaging: hand-lettering loveliness ahoy!

From The Dieline, a product packaging blog, a look at vintage seed-packet packaging, with the most glorious, exuberant hand-lettering this side of a Victorian seaside village.

Vintage Packaging: Flower Seed Packets from the 1800s

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Teller

Lovely, considering these days type selection is largely determined by whatever’s available on a Mac. And get off my lawn.
agroman

BB posted about the Smithsonian collection a while back..
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/09/22/gallery-of-old-timey.html

..and following back the links from thedieline, they lead to the same original collection.

I printed a bunch of them out last year and was going to decoupage my table with them. Never happened (but still think it is a good idea).
relawson

so is that an egg in the middle there? or some gourd i’ve never seen before?
- EMJ
  
  It’s an egg gourd.
zebbart

That’s weird, those are actually all covers from seed catalogs, not seed packets.

Anyway, the Smithsonian Institute has a wonderful collection of vintage seed catalog images here:
http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/SeedNurseryCatalogs/