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Antique Advertising Card for Perfume 1870
When I first became an antiques dealer, I kept hearing a word I wasn’t familiar with. Ephemera.
I asked what it meant, and found out I had loved and collected it all my life! Let’s look at what ephemera is, and how people are collecting paper ephemera today.
The word ephemera comes from the Greek word, ephemeros, which means short-lived or lasting for one day.
Antique French Advertising Menu
Ephemera is printed, on paper, and usually meant to be used once, or for a day, and then be discarded. It can include magazines, ticket stubs, greeting cards, letters, anything on paper.
Because these paper items usually had a short life-span, the antique pieces that survived over the years are rare and very collectable.
Antique Holiday Card with Bubble Blower by Coleman
I recently had the opportunity to view a superb collection of exciting ephemera. After some begging {on my part!} the collector sold me some of the pieces shown in this post.
I’ll be adding pieces this week and into June for those of you who are as enamored with these antique visions of the last two centuries as I am!
Full Set of Six Harrison Fischer Postcards
As with many things I adore, the desire to save these disappearing paper scraps began in Britain with Victorian women. They loved cutting out pictures from catalogs – “scraps” – and pasting them in an album, or onto screens, mirrors, boxes and even vases.
This delightful hobby spread to the states and most other Western countries. Manufacturers began producing beautifully lithographed trade cards for their products. Collecting chromolithographic postcards, cards, advertisements and more became widespread, beloved and fun!
Antique Victorian Birthday Card with Silk Fringe
For those of us who love history, antique ephemera is a beautiful and unique way to look at the past.
Printed paper is becoming increasingly collected and beloved by antique collectors, curators and historians as a significant antique to collect.
Small Victorian Gift Book with Scriptural Text
There is such a huge range of type and subject matter, each one fascinating in its own right.
The kind of ephemera I love best? Colorful, romantic and beautiful, but you guessed that already, right?
Lovely 19th Century Garden Songs for Piano and Voice
Ephemera complements your antique book collection beautifully. Every collector is drawn to different types of ephemera, and just as with the antique books you collect, you want to choose the ephemera that suits your passions.
Whether you’re a collector looking to add a great find to your collection, or you want to frame some fabulous ephemera to add to your home decor, ephemera is a beautiful way to add the style and exemplary art creations of the past to your home.
1926 Elizabeth Arden The Quest of the Beautiful Booklet
Little antique and vintage booklets like the one shown above are the perfect addition to a perfume bottle collection.
Unused Postcards from the 1920’s
Gardening prints, post cards of vegetables and fruits and little gardening booklets are a wonderful addition to your garden antique collection.
There are so many beautiful memories of the past in paper that we can rescue, and display with great joy. You can add something meaningful to you or your family to a beautiful antique print, like the one above, which has a special area just for that reason!
SHOP ANTIQUE EPHEMERA COLLECTION >
You can visit the Ephemera Society of America for more information.
TIPS ON CARING FOR EPHEMERA:
1. Store your items flat in acid and lignin-free boxes, not plastic.
2. Inside the box, stack items from large to small.
3. Place acid free tissue between your ephemera pieces.
4. Protect any ephemera on display from sunlight.
5. Roll really large ephemera such as large posters in an archival tube.
WHAT KIND OF PAPER THINGS DO YOU COLLECT?
A BIENTOT
Shop for the best in French Antiques, furniture with the patina of age, vintage accessories to delight you and your family & friends, and French Country utilitarian pieces. Treasures that make your home fresh, beautiful, inspirational and uniquely yours. Visit our shop FrenchGardenHouse.com
When my mil died I received her card collection. She was 97 when she she went to her eternal home. In the collection were her calling cards when she was a young lady, Valentine cards, birthday and Christmas cards. They are beautifully done and on occasion I would send one to a friend for their special day.
Ephemera is not a word I have used until today. But I have pieces such as old sheet music that fits the new word for me. Thanks for the post.
This is such a fun post, Lidy. Maybe because it resonates so well with my own collections. I really should photograph and post them someday. I collect vintage postcards and have quite a large collection. My friend in Paris who is an avid brocante attendee as well as the many vide greniers is a huge collector and most of of my French chroma advertising pieces have come from him. Some of these I’ve framed but there really are too many for my space. He also is looking for etchings and such and I’ve been lucky to get some of his duplicates! Let’s see — there’s a small cigarette card collection, a small collection of vintage musical sheet music. I also have quite a few Victorian scraps. A friend gave me an antique album which was pretty much falling apart but filled with images pasted on both sides to take apart and use in my art. I did take some off the old pages; some are stuck down pretty tightly — I don’t know what glue they used back then but some of it was pretty strong stuff! (Dental floss works well!). Oh, and a few old prayer cards… Yes, that would be smart to photograph it! Thanks for this one!
this was another delightful and informative post. Beautiful creations that bring loveliness into a new generation. I do hope they last long enough for next generation have enjoy their beauty!
Once again you hit the mark! I look foward to your informative emails, Thank you!
Thank you so much Denise! I love ephemera, secretly I would love a whole room filled with albums and lots of drawers filled to overflowing with beautiful Victorian images, menus and prints!
As always, a beautiful and informative post. I have a small collection of post cards and Very old salesmen cards. My favorite is a pair of salesmen cards that belonged to a person that has my maiden name. Not a common name for sure. I have had them framed.
I love your beautiful images of antique ephemera.