OREM — When Cliff Miles' daughter came home with a machine gun valentine that invited his child to "Have a blast," he was horrified.
"I decided to sit down with her and show her what valentines were like when I was a boy in the late 1960s," Miles said. "What I found was that there is a very wide range of cards and a fascinating history of valentines and their use in America. There are dozens of types, the most beautiful being those created by the Germans for the American market."
That was in 1990. Today, Miles has more than 5,000 rare, antique and unusual valentines in a breathtaking collection he's put together with the help of friends, family and even strangers.
"Sometimes, people will just call me up and ask me if I'm interested in something they've found," Miles said. "I tell them I am."
Right now, the collection is carefully housed in plastic sleeves in more than 60 binders in his basement. He hopes to eventually put the collection in a children's holiday and toy museum. Before that, he plans to write a valentine history book using items in his collection as illustrations.
"Researching love is a whole lot more wonderful than looking at hate," Miles said. "And some of them are so dang cute."
Miles has a wide variety of delightful valentines from the large, fragile fan that opens up to reveal love notes on each of the petals to a complicated, folding, 3D gazebo from 1909 that features flowers, children and hanging baskets. "It's unique. I've never seen another one like it," he said.
He has valentines done up in satin ribbons and Dresden lace with honeycomb puff hearts and fountains, valentines that stand up and pop up with windows that open and puppies that jump. He has tiny ones and big ones that stand 18 inches tall.
He has "cobweb" valentines that are cut so they lift out of the paper, and hand-tinted cards from the 1830s. He has embossed cards from 1870-1880 with matching envelopes.
There are cards with mirrors and peek-a-boo fronts and weaves. One is built on a satin-filled pillow. Some are from the Civil War era.
He even has a number of the mean-spirited "Penny Dreadfuls," valentines meant to hurt someone's feelings or poke fun.
"Those are not my favorite valentines," Miles said, "They are just here as an example for my book."
His favorites include delicate cut-out valentines that feature the traditional blue forget-me-nots and roses and white doves of love. The vintage one with three girls in a carriage reminds him of his three daughters, so that one is a favorite.
He also likes the German lithographs and the "Rafael Tuck" collection.
Miles has his own collection going: valentines made for his wife. He designs them using "scrap" bits and pieces of other valentines. Then he adds his own touches — ribbon woven through the paper or a foam core background that is painstakingly cut out to match a valentine from the past.
"I write my own verses, so it's personal to her," Miles said.
"It's usually a surprise. I don't know when he's going to do one because it's not every year," said Natalie Miles. "But I love them."
He learned to make his own by meticulously restoring broken and damaged pieces in his collection. "I take pieces down to the color copier and make new ones. Then I cut them out and glue them back into place. This one was a crumpled mess but the engineering was extraordinary," he said, pointing out an antique valentine with a girl in a rocking gondola. "This is fairly exotic. I bought it as part of a lot off eBay. This card alone is now worth about $250."
Valentines and his family aren't his only passions. Miles has a pair of shiny Volkswagen Karmann Ghias he's restoring in the garage. On the job at Western Paleontology Labs, he's working with dinosaur bones and fossils.
On his own time, he also collects toys and butterflies and model rockets. He reads voraciously. He plays the piano.
He's often told he's a Renaissance man by his colleagues and friends.
"I have no problem with that. I'm happy and life's never boring here," he said.
E-mail: haddoc@desnews.com