Ruination & Despair

The day before yesterday we shipped a first order of fine cards to Sweet Sailing, a purveyor of fine candies in Bayfield, Wisconsin. For those of you who may not be intimately familiar with the extreme northern reaches of the Dairy State, Bayfield is a small town and tourist destination located on the shore of Lake Superior, across from the Apostle Islands.

N.B. Customer Service Minion #2 was supposed to blog about this exciting new development on Wednesday but failed to do so. Trust me when I tell you that I have disciplined him appropriately for his lapse.

Our latest peculiar birthday offering, “A little bird told me,” exploits the timeless, enigmatic appeal of the moa (albeit in a thoroughly bizarre, surreal manner), even as it mocks the sentimental approach of conventional greeting cards.

Go ahead, just click to find out what’s inside the card!

The fine photo is taken from Richard Owen’s classic, Memoirs on the extinct wingless birds of New Zealand (London, 1879).

Archelaus returns to Riverdale Park, Maryland, tomorrow (April 22, 2010) to kick off a new season of farmers markets there. Our flunkey will begin, however, at a special Earth Day market at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) facility, located at Rivertech Court and River Road, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., and then proceed to the usual farmers market location at Rhode Island Avenue and Queensbury Road from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. We hope you’ll stop by and say hello.

Archelaus is delighted to announce that its notorious Egyptian mongoose checkbox card has been declared among the finalists for a LOUIE award in the category “Special Occasion — Everyday,” subcategory “$3.50 and below.”

Named for Louis Prang (1824-1909), the German-American printer who is credited with introducing color lithography to the fledgling U.S. card market in 1861, the LOUIEs are the greeting card industry’s highest honor, or so they tell us.

An anonymous Archelaus spokesperson, reached for comment during dinner, issued the following statement: “Pleased? Of course we’re bloody pleased! What are you, stupid or something? Pass the mustard.”

The actual winners of the competition will be announced on Monday, May 17, 2010, during the National Stationery Show.

Update: read our belated press release.