What happened to the big silver plastic key card for 18th birthdays?

[GlitterBicuits]

Does anyone else remember them? It was a cardboard box with a clear plastic front and a big silver plastic key with an 18 or 21 in the middle, usually on some silky fabric. Sometimes there was something like an artificial flower stuck on them as well.

Where have they gone?

I also had an 18th birthday glass champagne flute card from my parents next door neighbours! Same style display box

People used to write on the back of the boxes and give you these things instead of a birthday card

Does anyone remember them?
Have they died out entirely?

They sound awful!

I remember them. Tacky as fuck

Went the way of the big, silky padded card 'for the one I love' iirc

I know exactly what you're talking about and I couldn't wait to be eligible for one as a child. I'm not sure if I actually received one though. If I did, I clearly didn't treasure it as much as 7 year old me imagined I would

A sight to behold

I recently got my nephew a lovely, actual silver key on a red ribbon in a silk lined padded box for his 18th. I remember the tacky plastic ones!

Sounds like a dust collector which will be thrown out a few years later

You find them in card shops or charity shops.

Also available in horseshoe form, for those special wedding gifts!

They've all been hoarded by my mum, in the sideboard in the dining room. I'm looking forward to clearing them out when she's gone.

I thought they were for 21, not 18. My grandma used to sing;
“Twenty-one today, she’s twenty-one today, she’s got the key to the door, never been twenty-one before…”

In a world where we're supposed to be reducing the use of plastic that sort of thing should be outlawed. Simply no point to it whatsoever.

Think about the 18 YOs you know, and how many of them will be disappointed not to receive one. Exactly zero, thus illustrating the need for such a monstrosity.

Oh god yes I got some of those! I remember at the time thinking how pointless. Thank god we've moved on from some of that pointless and wasteful crap.

What would an 18 do with even an actual silver version? All this TAT. It's no wonder the earth is fucked.

You can hock a silver one.

My mum had some that she kept from when she was 21. She is 70 I don't remember then being a thing when i was 21, I'm 47.

I had one for both 18 and 21, plus the horseshoe for my wedding. Tack, the lot of them. Since binned, although the cardboard box was recycled....

user27aw they were definitely a thing, I'm in my 40s and they were in every sodding card shop back in the 90s

I’m in my 40s and remember seeing them in lots of card shops etc as a teen, and thinking then they were tacky and pointless.

I had one when I was 21, in the olden days ! They didn't have big,showy and shiny cards for age 18 in my young days..

@ShutUpAlex

They sound awful!

They were

I remember. Awful.
On my mas 81st i got her an 18 card which had a badge ‘18’ and turned it upside down. She loved it (or said she did). Badges still exist.

I remember those as well . They were bloody awful but a right of passage . Fond memories there but my god they were tacky. Even then.

I'd forgotten about the plastic silver horseshoes for weddings!
They had probably died out by the time I got married

We're they thought of as tacky at the time? I can't remember.
Mine were in a box for 30 years or so and then recycled.

And padded cards too, another thing I'd forgotten!

@HelpMeh Excellent!

I'm going to show this picture to my teenagers!

Am I hallucinating but weren’t they sometimes astonishingly huge - -like 3 or 4 foot high ? The keys and the cards. ?

My mother and stepfather received several silver plastic horseshoes and a plastic wishbone (shudder) for their early 80s wedding...