Vintage Precious Moments Loving You Dear Valentine 306932 – Baby Collection, First Year Sword Mark, Unglazed Bisque, Heart Card Motif 1997

A baby sits back on a tuft of pale grass, both hands round a card held up to be seen, a heart drawn on it in a fine pink line with a scalloped border — the careful kind of heart, drawn by someone for whom the shape is still difficult. His cap has slipped forward over one eye, his feet are bare, and small white and pink flowers are pressed into the grass beside him.

This is Loving You Dear Valentine, number 306932, from the Baby Collection — the part of Precious Moments modelled to infant proportions rather than the standing children of the main line: head large against the body, the pose seated, a grassy base in place of the usual wooden disc. The bisque is left unglazed, chalk-soft, the colour sprayed on so lightly that the yellow of the grass fades before it reaches the rim.

Underneath, beside the printed title and the ©1997 copyright, sits a small sword pressed into the clay before firing. Enesco gave every year its own symbol, so a design in production for several seasons exists with several different marks — identical figurines, told apart only by that stamp. This one carries the sword of 1997 while the catalogues place the design as a 1998 release, which makes it an example from the first run, before the piece reached the shops.

A gold foil oval reading Thailand is still in place beside the vent, and those labels are usually the first thing to go — which matters, since country of manufacture is the second tool collectors use to place a piece in time. Nearly thirty years on, the sword, the foil label and the small pink heart are all still where they started.