This charming little postcard from cardcow.com made me smile, especially the sight of the gaggle of children so excited to see the arrival of their “Pure Artificial Ice.”

Silly people, don’t you know there’s no such thing as fake ice? What? There is?! While it wasn’t delivered by the Standard Fuel and Ice Company, synthetic ice has actually around since the 1960s as a real ice alternative for skating. Unlike genuine ice, the fake stuff doesn’t require cold weather or refrigeration equipment. It requires… just one word… plastics!

The first application of plastic ice substitute for ice skating was in the 1960s using materials developed by DuPont in the early 1950s. Today, the technology is still in use from big rinks down to the garages of the hockey-obsessed.

SuperGlide Plastic Ice via globalsyntheticice.com