PaperMania

Yesterday Baird and I went to Hartford to PaperMania, an exhibit / sale where hundreds of vendors and collectors converge to buy and sell antique paper goods -- old trading / business cards, stamps, ads, posters, pictures, books and more. It is a collectors' event but some of the vendors have castoff boxes ($1-3 or so) for items that have been too long in their inventory or that are not up to the collectors' standards and those booths are where we spent most of our time. I was able to find several old advertising cards, holiday cards a couple of pictures and some old postcards to add to my ephemera. Baird got a lot of old stamps, including some from Iran for me (the Dean's Book Course I am teaching this semester is on Iran). Many of the items I will scan and use the printed versions in my collage and magnet making. They may be castaways to collectors but I think they are awesome and cutting them up is too hard to do. One is on old Christmas card to Little Robert from Aunt Kate, dated 1883. The picture is a bouquet of summer flowers! Baird says 1883 was at the very beginning of the use of Christmas cards.