ephemera

Boston Harbor Artillery Muster Roll

An original Boston Harbor Artillery muster roll for Captain William F. Hobart's Company of U.S. Regiment of Light Artillery for the period of March and April, 1819, is being auctioned on eBay. 

According to the seller, the muster roll contains 65 names of officers, musicians, artificers and matross's. According to the dictionary, a matross is a gunner or a gunner's mate; one of the soldiers in a train of artillery, who assisted the gunners in loading, firing, and sponging the guns.

The rare muster roll is signed by Captain Hobart on the back and Abraham Eustis, Lieutenant Colonel. Surname associations with this item are: Allen, Bartlett, Burns, Canada, Casley, Chapman, Collison, Comley, Covell, Cox, Coyles, Cross, Duncan, Dunn, Eustis, Evanoff, Evans, Fitzgerald, Fowler, Freeman, Furman, Gallagher, Garner, Gibson, Gilmer, Griffon, Hale, Haskill, Havens, Hobart, Hughes, Jackson, Lamb, Leeds, Leloquel, Lemerere, Lesley, Manning, McClennon, McCollister, McKay, Miller, Morrison, Nicholson, Nimlock, O'Neal, Patterson, Pollard, Rich, Rowe, Russell, Sandusky, Slack, Smith, Snyder, Stevens, Taylor, Thompson, Tileston, Tuttle, Tuyeret, VanCourt, Whitney, Wyant.

Search for more U.S. Military memorabilia on eBay.

Torquay Health Resort Postcard

This Torquay Health Resort postcard from 1895 is said to be the earliest picture postcard recorded for the town according to the eBay seller offering it.

The listing goes on to state: "Court-size card with the date 1895 incorporated in the multiple vignette design, signed by the artist, A.S. Couche of Exeter. Depicts Chapel Hill, Anstis Cove, Harbour, and Rock Walk. Attractively lithographed on pale blue card by the well-known Devon printer, J. Townsend of Exeter. The postcard publicizes Torquay's resort's low death rate; its warm climate; and, principal hotels and sporting activities. 

Although the Torquay Health Resort postcard is unused, the printed date clearly establishes its status as Torquay's earliest picture postcard (see the listing of earliest recorded dates in The Picture Postcard Annual). The fact that the card was designed and printed in Exeter--some two years before the earliest recorded date for that city--also makes it of interest to collectors of Exeter postcards. Privately published postcards had been allowed through the post at the reduced halfpenny rate only since 1st September 1894."

Movie Poster Collector Alan J. Adler Interview

At age 9, Alan J. Adler fell in love with the movies – 20 years later publishing the first book printed in the U.S. on movie posters as an art form. Writing and working production for some of the first movies made in the South, Adler also wrote, produced, and starred in his own regional CBS comedy show--a live, late-night hit that beat Johnny Carson in local ratings. Alan has written five independent features, including Parasite 3-D, featuring the first starring role of a 20-year-old Demi Moore. Adler has also written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, HBO Specials and Comedy, non-fiction, theatrical advertising, TV pilots, and children's animation. A twice-certified Yoga instructor, Alan also collaborated with author M. Scott Peck to develop Peck's best-selling The Different Drum as a world peace mini-series at NBC. A film and pop culture historian, Adler founded the Fox Archives, the Fox Still Archives and rededicated Fox Research.  For the next 10 years, Adler traveled the world as Fox's emissary, supported silent and classic film festivals, and curated Fox's first museum, "The Hall of Cool Stuff", in Sydney, Australia. Alan has returned to full-time writing with an adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' second novel, The Outlaw Of Torn, for the big screen, and Fighters' Row for low-budget action set in Amsterdam. Adler's first novel, Night And The Cat, a noir thriller set in 1945 Los Angeles, came to Adler in a black and white dream starring Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson. Night And The Cat appeared on bookshelves in January of 2008. In the following interview, we focus on Alan's first love—movie posters, which he sell through his eBay store.

ephemera: Talk about how you became interested in collecting movie posters?

Adler: I started collecting movie posters in 1957; the first poster I begged the theater manager for was I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF. I am now just about the only person I know who collects 1950's sci-fi and monster movie posters who started in the 1950's! Since posters were trash back then, people gave me whole buildings full. I never had to buy any posters--and nobody was selling them back then. Anyway...so, I built my art collection out of the trash and have more or less lived off of it for much of my life. I am a screen writer by trade. Selling posters since the 1960's makes me an old time dealer, I suppose, and I have seen just about every permutation of poster madness and happiness there is. In 1977, Dover published my book SCIENCE-FICTION AND HORROR MOVIE POSTERS IN FULL COLOR; it took me years to put together, pictured large images from my collection, and was more or less the first book devoted to the art of the fantasy poster ever published. I also went on to found the Archives at Fox in 1991--they never saved anything--I stayed there for 10 years as head of the department and built the first Fox Museum--the Hall of Cool Stuff--in Sydney, Australia, with about $5 million worth of stuff I pulled out of Fox's trash. So, all my life I have been giving value to ephemera, turning trash into gold!

ephemera: You're my kind of guy, Alan. Did you begin consciously, knowing what you would collect, or did you just one day discover what you were doing?

Adler: I was obsessed with monsters as a child--with literally no formal religious training, I found religion--good vs. evil--in the movies. The images I kept were my icons... they taught wonders... and long before I even knew the word eye-candy, I was an eye-candy-aholic. I had no idea anyone else ever collected posters until one day, when I was 19, I passed a movie poster store in Washington, DC. I nearly fainted. In one flash of a moment, I realized I was not alone all those years in my collecting, but actually had a kinship... shared a religion, even with all those other disenfranchised youths with too much time on their hands and a love of dark theaters in their veins. 

I am back to full-time writing once again and started THE MUSUEM OF MOM AND POP CULTURET on eBay (and the Web) to buy and sell a truly bizarre mix of posters and weird stuff. I love the net; you can find anything you didn't know existed!

ephemera: What challenges or obstacles do you encounter as a collector? How do you overcome these challenges?

Adler: I am thankful to the movie poster gods that I never really had any challenges. Even as a small child, my father supported my habit and took me to outlying theaters so I could ask theater managers for posters. I loved the stuff and magnetized in such a way, the stuff flowed to me, boxes full... buildings full... studios full. I have had a lifetime of good luck and have saved so much wonderful and important art from the trash that when I worked at Fox my wife used to call me an executive Dumpster diver! And when a particular kind of item gets well-known and the value gets high. I start collecting something else no one cares about. That's how I got into toys, which I consider the sculpture equivalent of movie posters as art.

ephemera: What are your favorite items in the collection?

Adler: Posters from the early Corman films are among my favorite. The colors and dynamics are masterpieces of exploitation... how good something that is not very good can be made to look. I now love Western imagery and am sorting through those materials on hand. I realized it was not the owning of the material, although at times it did define who I was, but it was the organization of things that I really loved. Give me a box of worthless trash and I stay up all night arranging it into art. I love that process... it includes study and it includes inspiration and both are key to presenting ones collection. Ever since I was a little kid, I was always a show and tell guy, so I like to present what I have found and win new converts to what my eye sees in this over-colored paper.

ephemera: What resources and advice do you have for movie poster collectors?

Adler: Don't trust guide books. Write your own. Pack safely and in archival boxes. Keep goodies in a dry, temp controlled space. I think display on the Web is the future. I love the private and obsessive sites of collectors who show their inner selves to all through the genius of their collecting. Tap your own genius and see how the stuff flows to you and out of you. The best collectors are conduits of info and imagery. The sharing of information is what it's all about.

ephemera: Thank you, Alan.

Salem Witch Trial Newspaper The Athenian Mercury

Stephan A. Goldman Historical Newspapers, an eBay seller, is offering a complete original single-sheet Athenian Mercury newspaper, London, England, dated Jan. 28, 1693. The back page of the newspaper, according to the listing, has a reference to the TRIALS of the WITCHES in SALEM, Massachusetts. The Athenian Mercury is the only contemporary newspaper that had any reference to the Salem Witch Trials while they were still in progress, according to Goldman. An ad for a newsbook by Cotton Mather represents the only reference in a newspaper of the time to this important episode in American history.

The listing includes the following background: The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk and Middlesex counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. The episode has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of religious extremism, false accusations, lapses in due process, and governmental intrusion on individual liberties. Despite being generally known as the "Salem" witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities. At least five more of the accused died in prison. All twenty-six who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Village, but also in Ipswich, Boston and Charlestown, produced only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducted. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged. One man (Giles Corey) who refused to enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so.

Search for books about the Salem Witch Trial.

Pasteur Rabies Vaccine Test Letter

Two years before successfully using the Rabies vaccine on human, Louis Pasteur wrote this letter dated August, 31, 1883, concerning the testing of the vaccine.

According to the eBay seller of the signed letter says: "My dear Eugene, I don't have the date of the day where you trepane [bore a hole into the bone] the rabbits of the 19th passage. I no longer have the date where you trepane the guinea pig of the 6th passage, that you told me about in your letter of the 30th, since this morning. I'm going to write once again to Mr. Andre. It is well known, I believe, having written to you that you will inoculate 2 dogs by trepanation and 2 dogs under the skin with the heart blood of a rabbit of the 19th passage group and equally the small one by trepanation and with the same blood. Use a good healthy quantity of this blood. Hello and good health, L. Pasteur. I will wait on my return for the book in the national library."

The listing goes on to say that Pasteur created the first rabies vaccine by growing the virus in rabbits, and then weakening it by drying the affected nerve tissue; he experimented with his vaccine in dogs.

It was first successfully tested in 1885, when nine-year-old Joseph Meister was bitten by a rabid dog. Pasteur treated the boy with his rabies vaccine and it successful. Pasteur was one of the world's greatest scientists, making major contributions in chemistry, medicine, and industry. While his work in chemistry had already made him famous by the time he was twenty-six, he is best known today for his work in medicine. His discovery that many diseases are spread by bacteria has saved countless lives, as has vaccination, which was also developed by Pasteur. Pasteurization, the process of killing germs during preparation of certain foods, was also developed by Pasteur, and is credited for saving both the silk and wine industries in France.

Search for books about Louis Pasteur.

Denver Colorado Namesake Letter 1856

A Denver Colorado Namesake letter written by George H. Ensign to James W. Denver in January, 1856, with a San Francisco California Free Cancellation Frank on the envelope, is the latest piece of interesting ephemera to go on the eBay auction block.

According to the listing, George H. Ensign was a noted San Francisco real estate broker and the founder of the Spring Valley Water Works, which was the beginning of the water utilities of San Francisco. James W. Denver was a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth Congress from March 4, 1855, to March 3, 1857. He also became the Governor of the Territory of Kansas in June, 1857, and the city of Denver was named in his honor.

The letter is rather interesting: Mr. Ensign is requesting that Mr. Denver send him the Exploration Surveys of the Pacific Railroad, which was the initial survey for the Transcontinental Railroad, which would be completed on May 10, 1869.

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Cart Passage License Cairo Egypt 1877

An officially stamped document on carton paper, issued in 1877, for a four-wheel carriage pulled by two horses, passage license is being auction on eBay.

According to the seller, the note enabled the bearer to pass through Al Mahrosa-Cairo (Abbden Area).

A scarce, odd item to be certain.

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Women’s Home Canning Poster WWI

Today's featured item is a very stirring WWI canning poster, offered on eBay, calling the Women of New London, Connecticut, to feed the Allied Armies & General Pershing's Army in France by canning food—producing 400,000 canned goods, warning of the dire winter to come with, another coal fuel shortage, and possible food shortage—all in stirring tones and bold lettering. The poster, according to the listing, includes ink signatures of the members of the Women's Connecticut Canning Corps., including Jean Burelson, Mabel Wilcox, and Mrs. Albert Donnell.

We did some canning here in the NC mountains this fall: I canned several jars of pickled jalapenos—hot and sweet—in honey and vinegar; meanwhile, the missus made grape jelly and grape juice from the bounty of blue grapes grown across the road on 60-year-old vines, which are carefully maintained by the original family that settled the mountain we live on.

Search for books about home canning.

Fenian Organization Letter Critical of Leadership

An eBay seller is offering a wonderful and rare, early Fenian Organization letter, written circa 1866-1867 by a member of the militant wing of the Fenian Organization, a fraternal organization dedicated to a free Ireland.

According to the listing, the contents of the letter seem to criticize the group's  founders, John O'Mahoney, and James Stephens, as well as William Roberts for not fully supporting the attacks against Canada at Fort Erie and St Albans (which occurred in 1866).

The seller's description continues, "It names Stephens, Roberts and O'Mahoney in the letter, 2nd page, see scan. It also calls for the US Government to formally recognize the organization, which has between 200,000 and 300,000 members, although the author argues this would almost certainly result in the British Government declaring War on the US. It asks that those members rounded up in Ireland and held by the British be formally declared prisoners of war, not traitors to be executed and argues that the British supported the Southern Rebellion during the American Civil War, but denies the Irish the same rights to self determination it supported in the Southern Confederacy. As a note, during the raid on Fort Erie in 1866, the Fenians wore IRA pins, for Irish Republican Army. This is believed to be the first reference to and the founding of the IRA movement. The letter is not signed but is original, written with an old quill or fountain pen, as a 4 page letter on it appears ledger paper…There is a later name written on last page, possibly with a ballpoint pen that says Sears R. Rochester. It was found a short distance from Rochester NY, a short drive from where many of the Fenian raids into Canada where conducted."

Search for books about the Fenian organization.

Washington National Monument Society Fund Raiser

This rare and interesting Washington Monument document was sold in the mid-1830s to help raise money for the construction of the Washington Monument.

Apparently, not to many people chipped in when these fund-raising certificates where being offered. When the monument was under construction in 1854, the Washington National Monument Society ran out of money and the project ground to a halt, according to the National Park Service. Twenty-five years later, the U.S. Government took over and completed the upper two-thirds of the structure by 1884 using marble from a different quarry. The two sections closely resembled each other at first, but time, wind, rain, and erosion have caused the marble sections to weather differently, thereby producing the difference in color.

The eBay seller offering this item says, "I have called the Washington Monument National Park and they have never seen a real document, but knew of some in the library of congress. They also said that it is a very rare document because of the age and the type of paper that was used to print them on."

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