Do you remember when the circus came to town? When the President came to town? When Elvis came to town? Even people that can’t remember are enchanted by the thought. Those days and those people may be gone, but small souvenirs linger on; the brightly colored posters, the stark and patriotic pamphlets, the ticket stubs that are frail from being clutched in excited hands. If you can close your eyes and imagine each momentous event, then you can see why people collect ephemera.
One meaning of ephemera is “something fleeting.” The other meaning of ephemera is “things designed for temporary use.” These things—tickets, check stubs, pamphlets, and posters—though designed to be temporary are ironically sometimes all that remains of important people, places, and events. Owning a piece of ephemera is literally like owning a piece of history.

Ephemera includes advertising materials, checks, bookmarks, brochures, cards, labels, letters, posters, tickets, photos, maps… Many people include baseball cards in the category, others say even publications like newspapers and magazines are ephemera as they represent bygone days.
If you are interested in collecting ephemera, or are already collecting, you can find pieces of ephemera hidden on cluttered tables at garage sales. They remain preserved under the glass of locked displays at antique malls.

For each type of ephemera, there is a dealer that specializes in it, and collectors that are looking for those dealers. As counter-intuitive as it may seem, modern technology is our link to the past. The Internet has made ephemera collecting easier than ever. You could scout a hundred estate sales and never find a rare program from the 1919 World Series, but type the words into a search engine and over 100 results will show you the way to the Holy Grail of your collection.

Alana Morgaine
Alana’s Books And Magazines
Our Ephemera

Tags: souvenir ephemera collectible tickets old paper collectibles