Ephemera Events & Exhibitions

Ephemera Society Winter Fair

Sunday 6 December 2020

We are waiting to hear from the venue about this Ephemera Fair. We understand the hotel is presently colsed. This page will be updated as soon as any information is received.

A window into the past for both the curious and the collector — find rare, unusual and historic paper items, priced from £2 to over £2000. A huge range of ephemera will be on display. The fairs will be on for one day only so make a note in your diary now, we look forward to seeing you there!

Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury
Coram Street
London WC1N 1HT
United Kingdom

Entry £3 · 11am - 4pm · All welcome
Early admission for members from 10am with membership card

Interested in booking a table for the fair? Reserve your space - download the booking form

For more details call 01923 829079 or email

Join us! The Ephemera Society is always pleased to welcome new members. Payment can be made online by PayPal.

Salem for Sale: Advertising Essex County 1770–1990

13 August 2020 · Presentation hosted online

Join Reference Assistant Hannah Swan as she dives deep into the Phillips Library's previously hidden Essex County Advertising Ephemera collection.

She will illuminate the challenges of cataloguing these diverse materials as well as the joys of discovering bizarre, humorous and rare items along the way. Marrying local microhistories with rich imagery, data visualization and historical photography, Hannah will explore how advertising ephemera can enrich our understanding of Essex County’s past. Satisfaction guaranteed!

Swan joined PEM’s Phillips Library staff as a Reference Assistant in January 2019. For the past 14 months, she has undertaken a project to fully process the library’s collection of advertising ephemera from Essex County.

A lifelong ephemerist, Hannah collects materials related to party planning, cocktail culture, and gelatin, which were also the focus of her graduate work.

More details

The Art of Advertising

Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, UK

View the online exhibtion

The Art of Advertising tells the story of British advertising from the mid 18th century to the 1930s through an incredible collection of handbills, trade cards, novelties, posters and much more.

Drawing on the Bodleian’s renowned John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera, one of the largest and most important collections of printed ephemera in the world, the exhibition will reveal how advertisements reflect social attitudes over time while showcasing some of the finest examples of advertising illustration and commercial art.

Art Deco By The Sea

A 15 minute BBC tour of “Art Deco By The Sea” exhibition is on iPlayer

This beautiful and exciting show will include around 120 works including paintings, posters, brochures, drawings, photographs, fashion, furniture, ceramics, glass and textiles, drawn from both public and private collections across the UK.

Image: detail from poster by Septimus Edwin Scott, ‘New Brighton and Wallasey’, 1923–1947, London Midland and Scottish Railway company. Courtesy National Railway Museum, York

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• Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts
• University of East Anglia
• Norwich
• Norfolk NR4 7TJ
• UK
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Wartime London

London Transport Museum

Highlights from the collection

The Underground Group, and later London Transport, produced a wide variety of public information posters during the First (1914-18) and Second (1939-45) World Wars.

The majority of wartime posters advised staff and passengers on emergency rules and regulations. Others were more overtly patriotic, often focussing on the valuable war work undertaken by transport employees.

Some WWI Underground posters urged onlookers to enlist with the armed forces. During WWII, posters were used to explain tube 'etiquette' to war workers and servicemen using the underground for the first time.

Railway posters, notices and handbills

Science Museum Group

View the collection

Encounter railway advertising and promotional material in the form of illustrated posters, printed notices and handbills. These works, including many by well-known artists, offer a fascinating record of railway style and graphic design.

Image: Detail from Thomas Cook & Son handbill 22 July 1873