Dartmouth’s annual Winter Carnival has been a major celebration since 1911. It is a long weekend filled with ski competitions, hockey games, a dogsled race, ski jumping (in years past), skating, parties, ice sculptures, receptions, talks . . . all sorts of events. I once met (twice) and talked with Johnny Cash when an episode of the show “Hootenanny” was filmed here, one Winter Carnival many moons ago.
Each year a new Winter Carnival poster is created. A detailed discussion of the subject can be found at: http://dartmouthalumnimagazine.com/articles/carnival-art
These Dartmouth Winter Carnival posters offer a special retrospective of 20th-century graphic design. Posters, like clothing, can offer a sense of a time and a place. They can be indicators of cultural history.
From 1924 until his death in 1986, in his 93rd year, Thomas J. Lyons (“TJ”) was a collector of vintage wood and metal type fonts who designed and printed using those fonts. Considered a lovable, energetic, colorful Boston character, TJ loved to put multiple typefaces together in an “old-timey” kind of way. His design was rarely particularly sophisticated, and his presswork would not be characterized as fine printing, but he had a lively, witty, downright fun style. In addition, TJ helped many an area designer or advertiser with type selection and made his many fonts available. I used a bit of his type now and then, and greatly enjoyed my 2-3 visits to TJ’s place.
In an era that generally scorned ornate and eccentric 19th-century typefaces, TJ loved them. He was an early leader in the revival of antique typefaces. TJ had been a Linotype operator, then an Army soldier in WWI. He lived an interesting and eventful life, best captured in Al Gowan’s book, “TJ Lyons, A Biography and Critical Essay” (1987, Society of Printers, Boston).
Stamped on the cover of Al Gowan’s book.
TJ on the job in 1984, at age 90. (Michael Romanos photograph)
One panel of a TJ brochure.
A panel of another TJ brochure.
A type specimen page.
One side of a 6-panel brochure.
A 1974 note to me from TJ.
Shipping label.
A couple of pages of type showing, in rough proof.
Christmas Card, 1950.
The Boston Harbor scene was taken from the masthead of Gleason’s Pictorial.
Envelope corner card.
Printed by TJ.
Two of TJ’s letterhead designs for Boston-area clients.
Inside spread of a Lyons’ promo folder.
Business card.
Online searches will reward the interested with more examples of TJ’s work. A great place to start would be David Greer’s postings on Flickr at:
One of the great joys of collecting ephemera is that each time we go to a paper show or to an antique mall or onto eBay, we come across interesting things we’ve never seen before. Here are a few recently encountered odds-and-ends.
Given the current highly politicized season—and the theme of this year’s Ephemera Society conference—I’ll start with a few political items. This Gray fellow distributed a creative and lively self-promotion which communicates his party, the fact that he is a WWII vet, and that he is not part of the same old same old establishment . . .
This modern-day card is also a flexible recording of a (likely anti-establishment) song by the group Street Dogs . . .
A creative booklet in support of Barry Goldwater couched throughout in terms of Goldwater as a medicinal remedy . . .
This item, coded 1964 I believe, shows how far American culture has come since then in its view of women, and its strategies to influence “the Ladies Vote”. It is a promotional piece from a novelty maker based on the premise that, if a candidate gives a woman this item imprinted with his political message, she will be so grateful for the bobby pins that she will get right on the telephone to spread the word about what a great candidate he is! Mighty insulting.
And then there is this . . .
This nostrum is so effective and fast-acting that “Dr. Renne” can hardly keep up with the demand . . .
It is fascinating to see which parts of an automobile were considered “extras” in 1917. . . including the starter!
A hand-drawn business card for fancy penman E. M. Vaile, plus two samples of Vaile’s work . . .
One set of wood-engraved images available from the Ledger Job Printing Office, George W. Childs, Proprietor, Philadelphia 1869. “Specimens of Theatrical Cuts; Being Fac-similes in Miniature of Poster Cuts” . . .
Then as now, entrepreneurs found niches in which to set up a business; in this case, manufacturing heaters to make it toasty inside urban horse-drawn trolley cars. The reverse of this card informs that the device can be seen at the 1883 Mechanic’s Fair in Boston . . .
Parson’s “PPP” Purgative Pills punches out every other remedy in sight. Printed by Kellogg & Bulkeley of Hartford. 1886.
An unusual message from a Lancaster, PA business owner, informing clients/customers that while he is “at sea until hostilities cease”, the business will be capably handled by mom . . .
Seems like a rather bizarre way to sell a bicycle in 1889 . . .
Three or four decades ago, as the American Bank Note Company began to struggle for its corporate life, it tried to come up with new ways to make a buck from its extensive archive of exquisite steel engravings. One partnership was with Hallmark, issuing a set of four “Miniature Gallery” greeting cards featuring engravings from ABN’s original dies. Quite elegant and well-produced, but unsuccessful in the marketplace . . .
I find that I have “a thing” for items showing corn, as well as “a thing” for wood engraving . . .
It seems that an “Intelligence Office” was an employment agency . . . ?
Hard to read here, but at this inner box label identifies the bunch of street urchins as “New York Boot Black Brigade” (white spots are reflections off the somewhat wrinkled varnished surface). . .
I also have “a thing” for custom woodcuts or engravings created for very small local businesses and farms . . .
Gasoline-powered rail cars, who knew?
The Union Tabernacle was a traveling Protestant revival movement. Information on the subject can be found by Googling “before the pope, the days of the revivalists”. The wood engraver’s name ended up printing backward. . .
I have come to look at many collecting areas as parts of a cohesive whole, rather than a list of separate specialties such as stamps, covers, trade cards, letterheads, cancellations, postal history, greeting cards, revenues on a document, etc. It is, in reality, a universe of intersecting interests. Take one example . . .
First there is the stamp, a 2¢ small Banknote (which Scott number is it, is it a color or printing variety, how well-centered are the perfs?); then there is the 1897 Indianapolis machine cancellation to evaluate; then consideration of the 2-color advertising cover (with a red ink chosen to match the first-class stamp) for “Seedsman” J. A. Everitt (“Inventor and Manufacturer of Everitt’s Celebrated Man-Weight Farm and Garden Tools”) . . . several topics and possible questions there; then there is an enclosed seed corn flier, which is made to function as a store sign, so the addressee is presumably a dealer; then there is a large wood engraving for those interested in printing technologies; then there is the graphic receipt copy (for a bag of oats), with much information about Everitt’s business and products. In many similar situations there may also be a trade card enclosed. All of these elements are part of one whole, and it makes a great deal more sense to consider them all together, rather than a stamp or cover collector folding away or selling off the other items as unwanted (or even worse, in times gone by, a stamp collector cutting off the stamp and tossing everything else!).
Another example, with a wealth of detailed information on several levels (and yet more on the reverse of the trade card and the flier) . . .
And one other example . . .
All of these things are part and parcel of the same subject. There is no earthly reason for philatelists to ignore enclosed letterheads, or for trade card collectors to ignore related postcards, or for carte de visite collectors to be disinterested in cancellations on applied revenue stamps. Exploring more aspects—all aspects—of a paper object opens up new collecting and research possibilities, enables more enjoyment to be had. Perhaps it is time to resurrect the now passé term “Paper Americana” to embrace all the intersecting, intimately related aspects of ephemera on paper, including stamps and postal history. Though we each, of course, have our own particular favorite interests, it seems to me there is no good reason to have a stamp show camp over here, a paper show camp over there, a postcard camp over there, etc.
And if an envelope with a stamp and a letterhead and a flier and a trade card are not found conveniently together, then all the better . . . the hunt can begin to track down related items.
For some time now, stamp dealers have recognized that more and more customers are inquiring about whether any ephemera (“collateral”, “go-withs”, call it what they will) might be available, have become aware that paper now often sells as well or better than stamps. Consequently, more and more stamp dealers also stock ephemera these days. Increasingly, postcard dealers represent a growing proportion of the dealers at “stamp” shows. And paper shows. There is a natural, market-driven consolidation of interests going on.
A huge international stamp show hosted in the USA every ten years. The folks who put on Washington2006 seriously considered integrating ephemera dealers into that show. They were unable to quite make that happen but did include a major display of ephemera material. For the upcoming NY2016 World Stamp Show (May 28-June4), there will be a strong Ephemera Society presence and participation. For the next such international show, Boston2026, organizers fully intend to include and integrate paper.
Philaphemerists of the world unite! (A bumper sticker?)
Trade cards were a late 19th century phenomenon, and postcards were an early 20th century craze. In the period from, say, 1890 to 1910, all sorts of interesting transitions occurred as businesses moved away from advertising trade cards to advertising postcards. One interesting aspect was that some cards, which appear on the image side more or less exactly like a typical trade card, are seen on the flip side to be postcard.
A brief recap: The earliest known postcard, I have read, was postmarked in December of 1848. In 1861 one John Charlton of Philadelphia was granted a patent for a private postal card; H. L. Lipman took over that patent and sold his “Lipman’s Postal Card” until 1873, when official government postcards with imprinted postage were issued. Abroad, non-governmental private postcards were first issued in 1869. In the USA, writing was not permitted on the address side of any mailed card until 1907. In postcard collecting, the “Pioneer Era” is considered to be pre-1898. Pioneer postcards almost always have an undivided back (the address side) . . . there is no vertical line printed in the middle, as nothing but an address was allowed.
The “Private Mailing Card Era” was from May 19, 1898 to December 24, 1901, a period in which private postcard makers were allowed to imprint “Private Mailing Card” on an undivided back. On December 24, 1901, postcard makers were permitted to use “Post Card” or “Postcard”. Writing on the address side was still not allowed, so all cards mailed up through this period had any message written on the face/image side of the card. Usually a blank area was provided to leave room for any personal message.
From December 24, 1901 until March 1, 1907 was the “Undivided Back Era”; on March 1, 1907 came the “Divided Back Era”, with writing permitted on the address side, a vertical line having been printed down the middle . . . address to the right, any message or advertising to the left.
During this period of transition(s), interesting examples can be found of advertising cards which had full-image graphics on the front—they looked just like late 19th century trade cards, no blank area for a message—but bore postcard backs, either undivided or divided. Clearly advertisers were in the process of figuring put how to continue promoting with ad cards as the world around them was dropping trade cards and adopting postcards.
This postcard from New Home Sewing Machines is indistinguishable in style from several pure trade cards put out by the same company in the same time period. It is a trade card that has been given a postcard back.
A similar example. The top card is a stock Victorian trade card used by many different jewelers and other firms, with either a blank back or advertising text. The bottom card is a postcard, mailed with postage stamp affixed in 1919. Exact same design.
Canadian card, issued by Tiger Tea. The address side is mostly filled with printed text and price information, with a small space left for an address and a smaller space for the stamp.
This one (as with others in a series from the same company) has a divided back, left side bearing printed advertising. Mailed in 1909.
Divided back postcard, unmailed.
Divided back postcard; on the address side, printed advertising text runs across both sides of the card leaving no space for any address, so it seems that it may have been a handout version, rather than all such cards being put into the mailstream.
One prized acquisition at the recent Ephemera Society conference and fair in Greenwich was a trade card, apparently, made of wood! Produced by the Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company of Bridgeport, CT, bearing a patent date of October 18, 1865, it measures @4 1/4” x 2 3/4”, and is @ 1/4“ thick.
My first question about this quite unusual 1860s “trade card” was whether it is, in fact, made of wood; and if so, whether it is completely wooden. Or might it instead be some composite such as gutta percha? Or wood with applied composite for the details? Preliminary research has turned up quite a bit of information. It is 100% wood, likely black walnut. No doubt is was meant to do double duty as a trade card (with a list of agents in several cities on the reverse), and a salesman’s sample of the quality of embossing which could be done by the firm.
The Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company of Bridgeport was founded in 1867 by Henry (William H.) May and Clapp Spooner, and remained in business until 1889. May was the holder of 1865 patent No. 50,608 (plus several later patents), which read in part that his process was a “new and useful Improvement in Stamping or Molding of Wood” . . . “The pieces of wood to be pressed or molded are cut from the end of the log or timber in sheets or cross-sections, having the face or faces upon which the impression is to be made transverse to the grain. The pieces of wood, having been thoroughly seasoned or otherwise freed from moisture of water or sap, are placed under, between, or within dies or molds of any desirable form, in such a manner that a heavy pressure may be made upon the end of the grain of the wood, and the pieces of wood, when thus placed, are subjected to a single and short pressure by such dies or molds, the pressure being applied against the end of the grain and in a direction as nearly as possible paralleled with the grain. Such pressure, having been applied is then removed and the wood released from such dies or molds without unnecessary delay.”
An 1867 patent of May’s, taking the process a bit further by cutting through from the back, resulting in open fretwork in places.
May’s Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company (OWMCo) advertised in 1869 a variety of pressed wood products: “Medallions, Curtain Pins, Rosettes, Monograms, etc.” An OWMCo 1874 catalog (copies at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and at RareVictorian.com) also offered doorknobs, brackets, sleeve buttons, shutter knobs, panel ornaments, jewel boxes, buttons, and escutcheons. May’s commemorative medallions in several varieties were offered for sale at the 1869 National Peace Jubilee in Boston.
These are the sort of pressed wood decorative furniture embellishments produced by William H. May’s Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company in Bridgeport and other makers.
An interior doorknob (Sheaff collection) made by the Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company and a group of their matching drawer pulls.
The cover and one page from the OWMCo 1874 trade catalog (courtesy RareVictorian.com)
There are two excellent, definitive reference articles on this subject by Donald G. Tritt. One appeared in the February 2012 issue of The Numismatist magazine, titled “Die-Pressed Wooden Exonumia”; the other in the July 2014 issue of The Numismatist, titled “Die-Pressed Wooden Medals & Plaques of the 1876 Centennial Exposition”, a history and catalog of the many 1876 Centennial pressed wood commemorative medallions and plaques. The 2014 article is available online at https://www.money.org/uploads/pdfs/DiePressedWoodenMedals8.26.pdf
Tritt reports that credit in America for originating the process of die-pressed wood should go to one Philander Shaw of Boston, holder of 1860 patent No.28,309; and Tritt quotes details of Shaw’s patent description. However, he also chronicles much earlier production of wooden planchet “medals” in 17th century Germany. The 2012 article also describes additional 19th-century American makers.
Though the production details of the Shaw process, the May process and the process of the Philadelphia Ornamental Wood Company (incorporated on April 29, 1876 by John H. Schreiner, Frederick C. Viney and others four days after winning a lawsuit brought by the U. S. Mint, maker of the “official” coins and medallions for the show) vary a bit, each of them used softened slabs of end-grain wood embossed with metal dies using heat and pressure. The process is directly analogous to cameo printing, and the striking of coinage, medals, and medallions in metal. Wood is, of course, softer than metal, so the idea was logical. As black walnut wood (Juglans Nigra) was in widespread favor for furniture during the Victorian era, it was usually used for these wood pressed items, especially when creating decorations to be applied to furniture. The “only wood appropriate for middle-class gentility”, opined Francis Lichten in 1950 (Decorative Art of Victoria’s Era, New York, Scribner’s, p.93; quoted it Tritt).
Tritt quotes one provider of wooden medallions for the 1876 Exposition, John Haseltine of Philadelphia, saying, “The ‘black walnut medals’, so-called are, it is said, made from woodcut with the grain, steamed until it assumes a semi-pulpy condition, then coated with shell-ac (sic), and the impression made by a squeeze and not a blow.”
Another wooden trade card, for the Philadelphia firm William A. Drown & Company, a maker of umbrellas and parasols. Likely a product of the Philadelphia Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company. 2 3/4? x 3 5/8? (collection of George Fox; I know of one other)
This 1876 Centennial Exposition George Washington head medallion (large head version) (Yale Museum of Art)
This 1876 Centennial medallion of General Joseph Roswell Hawley was made by the Philadelphia Ornamental Wood Company. Hawley was a Civil War general, the Governor of Connecticut, a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator. Tritt gives information on the likely maker of the die.
(Sheaff collection)
The 1876 Centennial medallion of Independence Hall, produced on the floor of the show by the Philadelphia Ornamental Wood Manufacturing Company.
The Main Building, one of a set of four 1876 Centennial Exposition rectangular plaques. (Sheaff collection)
Agricultural Hall, one of a set of four 1876 Centennial Exposition rectangular plaques. (Sheaff collection)
Statue of Liberty commemorative rectangular plaque put out by Lord & Taylor (last line of time on the reverse, in shadow in this image). (Sheaff collection) Lord & Taylor sponsored a similar plaque for the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge (below).
I have located three additional, different wooden trade cards in private collections. The hunt continues . . . anybody out there have a different wooden 19th-century trade card to report?
The humble small, vintage business card . . . often type only, often printed letterpress, often on coated stock, is an easily overlooked source of rich tidbits of primary source information. Here are a few . . . the careful reader may find a number of new things to ponder about the lives of our ancestors (Crapo’s Horse Medicine?) . . .
Though both my father and his father worked for the Boston & Maine Railroad for their entire careers, I’ve never been especially interested in trains. (Though when, as a boy, I got to actually drive a steam engine for a short distance in the Charlestown, MA yards, and a few years later likewise drive a diesel engine a bit, I found that very exciting!) But these days I do have an active interest in 19th-century train images, especially the odd and unusual ones which Victorians were wont to create. It was, after all, the golden age of the iron horse, and trains—the economic and travel wonder of the day—were front and center in the Victorian consciousness. Advertisers came up with many a strange train to tout their products.
In other cases, though the locomotives themselves were shown in a straightforward fashion, the situation was a tad unusual . . .
A great locomotive image from the era . . .
And to wrap up for today, a modern stamp design, one of a series of stylized transportation vehicles. Several in that series were released, but the series was ended before the locomotive engine made its way onto envelopes . . .
Here is a blog post base on a presentation on an “Old Glory” booklet which I wrote and designed, and was put out by the U.S. Postal Service in 2003.
It contained 20 postage stamps, it was entirely ephemera-based and a fun project.
I have been asked to post it to this Ephemera Society website, so here it is. The text and much of the detail will be pretty much impossible to make out in this format, but anybody interested can easily find one of these “Prestige Booklets”, as they were dubbed, on eBay for a few bucks.
