The first trace of what will be called “snow cards'' dates from February 4th, 1942. That day,
Hergé wrote to Alice Devos, the wife of his friend José De Launoit, who was his partner in the epic.
from the Atelier Hergé around 1934. It was Alice who thought of Tintin for Photopress, a company that
publishes postcards and calendars in Uccle in the Brussels region.

On 5 February, Hergé travelled by train to Casterman in Tournai to meet his publisher and Charles Lesne, his local contact since 1934. For the occasion, he was offered the chance to convert his albums, which had previously been printed in black & white, into 64-page colour versions, including the first ones, for which he would have to revise the format.

This challenge forced him to review his working methods. He immediately considered hiring Edgar P. Jacobs, but turned down the offer in view of his current production for Rayon U. That left Alice, whom he hired on 15 March. Her role? Colourist and commercial agent.

At the end of March, Hergé began negotiations on the agreement that would finally be signed on 17 April with Kurt Bährens, the German director of Photopress, for a three-year period. But Hergé, overburdened by the reworking of L'Oreille Cassée and his weekly work for Le Soir, where he published Le Secret de la Licorne, was dragging his feet on the postcard order. Finally, in August, the idea of 25 snow cards was decided and the Brussels firm Verstegen was chosen to print the drawings in eight-colour offset, which still had to be composed to honour the contract.

Le 17 August 1942, In a letter to Bährens, Hergé explains that «the story of the Chevalier de Hadoque's exploits against the pirate Rackham le Rouge" has become a daily feature in Le Soir.« the drawings should be ready in ten days or so ».

175,000 cards Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, A total of 7,000 of each design (5,000 in French and 2,000 in Flemish, since Belgium is bilingual) will be printed and put on sale from 3 December in all good bookshops in Belgium. From then on, Hergé, as busy as ever, entrusted all his merchandising to his exclusive agent, Bernard Thièry. Thièry developed the famous «T.B.F.» licences for puzzles, blocks, toys, calendars, colouring books, etc.

On 20 June 1944, Hergé once again wrote to Bährens asking for his 25 drawings back. But Bährens was slow to reply, and when Brussels was liberated on 3 September, all trace of the 25 illustrations was lost...

Last but not least, a number of snow cards were reissued by Casterman in the early 1950s, before becoming collectors' items hunted down by several generations of collectors.

Lost? Yes, but not forever, as they made their way back into the collection of Roger Gosset (another R.G.), the Belgian tobacco magnate who owned Saint-Michel cigarettes. He died in
1991 when he had just shown his treasure to Stéphane Steeman during his visit to the exhibition All Hergé in Welkenraedt, where the latter was organising a resounding exhibition of his famous Tintinophile collection. Steeman recounts this furtive appearance in «Hergé autrement», his collector's memoirs published by Luc Pire twelve years later.

25 years later, 22 of them are on sale at Artcurial, three others having been sold elsewhere two years earlier (Galerie Moderne & Christie's). A unique opportunity to buy one of the best samples of Hergé's ligne claire.