Memories. And kittens.

Greta Garbo was clearly a favourite of my grandmother's. Garbo is quite prominently featured throughout the book.

I couldn't find the source for these cards online, but my parents suspected these may have come with chocolate bars. There are 78 cards in the book (most of them glued down, some loose between the pages), so even if one bar of chocolate came with more than one card, a lot of chocolate was eaten.

I just went and did some more research on movie card history. The closest match I could quickly find to my cards was the Swedish Cloetta film star card, which had a chocolate drink ads on the reverse side. I had assumed all the cards were blank on the reverse side because all the loose ones were. Most of the cards with white frames actually have a cough medicine ad on the back: "Tussin - paras lääke yskään. Valm. Karl Fazer OY, Helsinki - Finland", which definitely confirms the chocolate theory as Fazer is the best chocolate manufacturer in Finland even today. Haven't run into any Fazer cough medicine lately, though, so maybe chocolate was always what they did best.

These cards are Finnish, but none of the star are (just a few Swedish actresses there, but no Finns). The Movie Card Website said these cards were distributed internationally with a few local additions here and there, which explains why I've run into identical cards in many far away places during my search for the origin of these cards. A few months ago this video clip (by the amazingly talented artist Tina Berning) appeared on my Instagram feed, and now I'm glad to be able to give a little video response to it myself.

A little note fell out as I was leafing through the book. I don't know who wrote this rhyming note as I doubt my great grandaunt Saima would've called my grandmother Kaarina (she would've called her Kaija and her handwriting was nicer). Maybe my aunt P and my mother can shed more light on this? According to this note this book was gifted to my grandmother so she could use it as a guest book in her new home. My grandmother had other plans.