I fell in love(pun, ha ha) with Harlequin/Mills and Boon covers when I discovered my mom’s old books from the 1970s. Since then I have a very strict time period for which I collect 1980 or earlier and I usually only focus on a few authors because they make for an entertaining read every now and then.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of the typical romance genre, in fact I don’t think I have read any contemporary Harlequin romances, what I love like my passion for other vintage books is the language, and settings. I like really convuluted sexist (I know, I know shame on me as a feminist and I am a feminist) plots and I love that the heroines aren’t imagined, or spunkier or different from their times, which I think is the case with a lot of historical fiction. The vintage books actually have a more accurate representation of that current society. I love reading especially the books from the 1960’s and 1970’s where you see the conflict between traditional women’s roles and the new modern roles and of course its a fantasy, so there is always a happy ending and the woman gets both.
As for the covers, I love the old school illustrations, in fact the style of the first one is actually my favorite, its so pulpy and awesome and I wish I had a better vocabulary to describe it. I’ll try to do a monthly post about my collections. Its going to be harder and I have to be more selective because my local thrift store has raised prices for old paperbacks from $.25 to $1.99
Orange You Grape 
I have a vintage Kate Walker and II’m not parting with it……some Sandra Marton’s as well.
I have been collecting Harlequins for about 4 years now, the cover artwork is fantastic but I have also read many, many of them since I was 14 years old. Once you start collecting as I did from ebay it can be very contagious