Our Copperman's Day print for 2024 is inspired by a lovely concert recorded for the CBC on December 2, 1993, at the Glenn Gould Theatre in Toronto, featuring vocalists Holly Cole, Rebecca Jenkins, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Jane Siberry, and Victoria Williams in an ensemble setting accompanied by Tim Ray on piano. The concert recording takes its name from the opening song: "Count Your Blessings," which is something we try our best to remember to do. There are days, of course, when we forget this simple act, but coming back to counting our blessings is always the goal.

Copperman's Day, for us, is an extension of the Christmas season, falling as it does on the First Monday after Epiphany, and Christmas 2023 was a Christmas where we keenly felt the absence of Haden, the Convivio Shopcat. She'd been with us since Labor Day Weekend, 2005, and on the 15th of September, 2023, we had to say our goodbyes. All these weeks and months later, we still miss her terribly. 18 years is a long time, and yet still not long enough. "Count your blessings" were words that went along with Haden. We appreciated every moment we had with her, and Christmas this year has been a bit, or a lot, melancholy, without her striped orange presence. She seemed to love Christmas as much as we do: she loved the tree, she loved perching atop the presents, and she even seemed to love the music (except, perhaps, the CD of Scandinavian and Russian music we play each Midwinter solstice night... the stomping and whooping made Haden's ears twitch a lot and we could discern a bit of a scowl on her face).

The "Count Your Blessings" CD was one she liked, and so it felt only right to make this our Copperman's Day print. The song was written by Edith Temple and Reginald Morgan in 1946, and the lyrics that get us every time are these:

Count your blessings while you may, For we are here, with little time to stay.

We've dedicated this year's print to our beloved little pal, Haden. As for Copperman's Day: it is an old Dutch printer's holiday, falling on the First Monday after Epiphany each January. It was traditional on this day for printers' apprentices in the Netherlands to receive the day off to work on their own projects––usually small printed keepsakes that they'd sell for a copper.

These miniprints happen to be standard postcard size. Each is printed by hand from historic metal types in multiple, separate print runs on the Vandercook 4 printing press in our Lake Worth studio on recycled French Speckletone papers.

SPECIAL DEAL! Order 5 or more of our mini prints (Copperman's Day prints, B Mine Valentines, and our famous Keep Lake Worth Quirky prints) and use the code COPPERMAN when you check out; we'll take $5 off your domestic order to help balance out our flat rate shipping charge of $9.50. Of course, you can spend $85 or more in our shop and earn free shipping, too!