Sheet Music

The history of illustrated sheet music goes back to the fifteenth century, when music was often hand-decorated with elaborate colored letters. Today’s collectors want sheet music published after the 1820s that has interesting graphics. Most of the lithographed vignettes and covers were printed on the East Coast. Many early published songs had been composed in […]

Safety Matches

Early matches were extremely hazardous because they used a poisonous white phosphorus and could ignite easily and unexpectedly. “Safety matches,” invented by Carl Lundstrom of Sweden in 1855, used a nonpoisonous red phosphorus that had to be struck on a specially prepared rough surface to light. Photo: Hake’s Americana & Collectibles

Other Printed Ephemera

Unusual bits of printed paper—from labels to paper napkins—are known as ephemera. There isn’t space enough to list all the old paper items that are interesting to collectors but it is worth noting that there are large, well-documented museum collections of valentines, advertising cards, baseball cards, broadsides, railroad passes, circus posters, and other paper memorabilia. […]

Posters

The art poster popular by the 1890s evolved from the illustrated advertising poster. The development of lithography and high-speed presses in the first half of the nineteenth century made possible a boom in the production of advertising posters for everything from steamship voyages to patent medicines.At first the posters had more text than pictures, but […]

Dating Postcards

The earliest picture postcards mailed in the United States were probably the souvenir cards sold at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The message was written on the picture side of the penny postcard (not the address side) before March 1907, or it cost 2¢ to mail. By 1908 postcards had become extremely […]

Postcards

The earliest picture postcards mailed in the United States were probably the souvenir cards sold at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The message was written on the picture side of the penny postcard (not the address side) before March 1907, or it cost two cents to mail. By 1908 postcards had become […]

Old Historic Newspapers

There are a few single issues of important old historic newspapers, but they have been reprinted so often that the chance of having an original is slight. The Library of Congress Serial and Government Publications Division publishes information circulars that tell how to distinguish originals and copies of eighteen famous issues. The circulars are on […]

Newspapers

Old newspapers are not as valuable as most beginners believe. Some newspapers published in America from 1690 to 1860 are important, but most libraries today keep copies on microfilm, not the original, fragile paper. Do not destroy any pre-1860 newspaper before contacting a local historical society or an antiquarian bookseller. Some newspapers printed after 1860 […]

Care of Old Newspapers

Wood-pulp paper is merely a mass of cellulose fibers. Lignin, a component that acts as a binder, makes paper like newsprint brittle, weak, and short-lived. To preserve the information in a newspaper article, photocopy it on acid-free paper. However, if you want to preserve the newspaper article itself, try a milk of magnesia and club […]

Matchbox Labels And Matchbooks

Matchbox labels came into use about 1826 with the invention of the friction match. The first label on a matchbox was strictly utilitarian. The design was black and white and had directions on how to the use the new invention. By 1830 N. Jones & Company of England produced a crude, pale green matchbox label […]