I have saved almost all the pocket size notebooks I’ve used in my life, except for the very earliest ones. I was drawn to small diaries and notebooks before I could even write, and the very first ones I remember using were Hallmark promotional diaries given away at the local drugstore– but I don’t have any of them anymore. It bothers me a bit that I don’t have any artifacts from this foundational part of my notebooking history!
I’d never thought to google “Hallmark Diaries” until recently, but sure enough, other people saved those diaries and some have ended up for sale on eBay and Etsy. I’m pretty sure I must have used a couple of these exact ones shown below (from an Etsy listing):
Here’s another one that would have been from around my era:
The one below (from eBay) also looked familiar, though by 1979, I would have been well into my usage of much more exciting diaries from the Harvard Coop!
These diaries, or date books, to use their terminology, had a pretty standard format: 4 inches high by 3 1/2 inches wide, staple bound, with space for some personal information, a spread for each month, and some information relating to gift giving. I remember mine having lists of gifts for different wedding anniversaries, and maybe lists of birth stones. (Images below are from these ebay listings: 1983 Hallmark Date Book, 1982 Hallmark Date Book, 1979 Hallmark Date Book.)
The back covers would say “With our compliments” and have space for the retailer’s information.
As anyone who’s followed this site for a while might guess, the cutesy covers and squarish shape of these Hallmark diaries was not particularly to my liking. I know I cut at least one of mine down to a narrower rectangular shape, and I might have pasted something over the cover, or colored it with a marker. Trimming the diary down made the calendar unusable, but I wasn’t using them to record any actual appointments so I didn’t really care. I think I mainly scribbled in these date books, and maybe practiced writing my name. But I wish I still had them so I’d know for sure! Some of my childhood notebooks have rather amusing things in them, so I’m sorry my Hallmark diaries are long lost.
OMG I remember all 4 of the ones you show in the first image! I used to use these little free datebooks (picked up at the downtown Seattle Hallmark shop where my stationery passion first began) to track my period with a discreet little code. Wow…thanks for that nostalgia trip!
Seeing the monthly spread is pretty Proustian for me. My mom used to have one of these on the kitchen countertop — doctor’s appointments and such written in, and the days x-ed out one by one (as on a calendar in a prison cell in the movies), with a Parker T-Ball Jotter at the calendar’s side.
(Recent reader, new commenter.)
Love those colorful retro covers SO much, I would scoop all of them up if I saw them at a trift shop!
Thanks for sharing!