- Today I'm in the beautiful river town of Mankato to see a most unique collection.

Yvonne Carou is a collector of holy cards.

My question, and maybe yours as well, what is a holy card?

Well, I think I'm about to find out.

- You're probably wondering what a holy card is.

I've been collecting them for a long time, so I can tell you a little bit about what they are and what they aren't.

- Awesome.

I wanna learn.

- Okay, so I have some laying out here.

Holy cards, typically in the Catholic Holy Cards typically have a saint, or they'll have the Virgin Mary or Jesus on them.

So they'll have some kind of a artwork.

And then they may have a prayer, or they may have information about somebody in the back, but typically about this size, they were put into Bibles.

They were given out as prizes for Sunday school students.

They were used at funerals to memorialize someone who had passed away.

They're a real important part of the Roman Catholic tradition and culture because they were used to help explain the stories and the Catholic religion.

- So how did you get started collecting holy cards?

I mean, it's a unique collection idea.

I love it.

Yeah, but how did you do it?

- Actually, my mother and father gave me my first holy cards, and I think it was my mom that put it in a present.

And she said, this is something you might like - With all your cards.

How many do you have?

I mean, is your collection large?

Is it small?

Where are you at?

- I think it's a pretty big collection.

There isn't a, you know, definitive guide to how many cards everybody has out there.

But I, I estimate I have about 1500.

- How do you find them?

- They actually like fall out of Bibles and fall out of people's books an awful lot.

Occasionally you'll find them in antique shops in the postcard section.

- Are you still looking for cards?

- Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I still occasionally I'll, I'll go rummaging around in an antique shop and look for them and once in a while I'll look online.

If I know that I'm missing a particular one, I'll go online and see if maybe somebody has it for sale.

- Yvonne, when I look at your cards, I see a lot of history.

- The earliest card that I know about was made in 1432 and it's a wood cut of St. Christopher.

- Do you have it?

No, - That one's in Germany.

In a museum someplace.

- Can you follow the historical timeline when you see a card?

Do you know?

Kind of, yeah, that's from the 1840s and that's from the 1940s.

- I'm getting better at it.

I'm not, it's not perfect.

It's not an exact thing.

These are for events and the card, like here's one for John F. Kennedy.

Oh sure.

And that was a holy card that was printed after his assassination?

Yes.

And so that would be 1963.

- And this isn't a reproduction, this is the real deal.

- Yeah, that was one of the cards that was distributed.

I'm sure they printed millions of them, but I'm, you know, how many of them have survived for 50, 60 years now?

- No, it's so great that you've saved them.

- You know, if they have the dates on them, that's great.

The rest of them, it's a bit of detective work.

- It's a treasure hunt for you, isn't it?

It - Is a treasure hunt.

- And I noticed you have one, a military one there.

- Yeah, I actually have two of them here that are from World War ii.

One company printed something like 500 million holy cards and they were given out through the American Red Cross and through the folks that went out and entertained the troops.

Right.

And they would hand those out to the, any of the troops that wanted them.

And it was a little something that a soldier could keep close to him that might remind him of his religion, his home.

- And we will never know the impact on one of these little cards.

Right.

And the artwork is just, just beautiful.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

I mean, there's some amazing artists.

If you get a magnifying glass and really look in there, there'll be little things like rings and buttons and little stars and things like that that are just lovely as you know, like with photographs and stuff, colors will fade if they're exposed to the sun, if they get too much light and, and this is just paper.

Right?

So real easy for you to get crumpled or ripped.

So I, I love taking good care of 'em.

- It's kind of like a baseball card collection, right?

- It is, yeah.

Like trading cards for God.

- Trading cards for God.

- Yeah, exactly.

- Now most of the cards that I've seen here look like to be Catholic.

Yes.

Are there Protestant cards - In the Protestant church?

Especially Baptists.

They do lesson cards.

So they are holy cards.

But they're not used in the same way.

They're not depictions, for example, of Saints and Mary and, and Jesus.

They are lessons.

So they're to be used, for example, for Sunday School.

Sure.

Or to teach someone the stories of the Bible.

- Yvonne, if I find a holy card, what should I do with it?

- Well, you could start collecting, but if, if you don't wanna do that, or if you have, you know, a bunch of them and you just wanna clear out your house or whatever the church actually recommends that you give them away, burn them or bury them, that you don't recycle them or throw them in the trash.

And the reason for that is that they potentially could have been blessed so they potentially could be religious objects in that sense.

Of course you can give 'em to me.

I would love it.

- After leaving Yvonnes, I can't wait to get home to check my grandmother's Bible.

Will there be a rare holy card placed between the old brittle pages.