Ephemeraist? Ephemera?
This blog is a companion to the virtual online gallery I’ve created to display and share the best items in my collection of 1920s, buy viagra purchase 1930s, cialis and post-war ephemera, viagra mostly travel related but with lots of other stuff, too.
I will blog about things in my collection, and some other stuff, as things come to mind.
Everything in my collection is original. The material is not reproductions.
My basic passion is paper items such as travel brochures, airline time-tables, ocean liner time-tables, auto road maps, luggage labels, advertising, and graphic design publications from the 1920s and 1930s to the 1970s, primarily in Europe but also Asia and, to a small degree, the U.S.A.
Enjoy
So, Why Did This Collection Happen?
I took the red pill, fell down the rabbit hole, and got stuck in Wonderland, and started collecting travel ephemera in 1992 while I was on my way to Prague, Czech Republic, where I lived from 1992 to 1994. We had stopped in London on our way to Prague and one day in London we visited the famous British Museum. Afterwards, we wandered down Museum Street, just south of the museum, and I stumbled on an Antiquarian book store. In this store I notice a small brochure, which I would later learn were called “ephemera.”
I bought it thinking “how interesting!” Little did I know…
Later, in Prague, I was walking through the streets of Prague’s Old Town and I passed an Antiquarian Book Store. I went inside and there were bins of old paper items. There were travel brochures and ocean liner time-tables and luggage labels. That was it – I was hooked.
Most of the items are from Europe, which is my main area of interest, with a concentration on Germany and Italy and Central Europe. These countries had by far the best graphic design in the period influenced, no doubt, by the Bauhaus and Italian Futurism.