The Ephemera Society News

ABPS Autumn Stampex request for ephemera exhibits

12 - 15 September 2018 · Closing date 12 July 2018

The Association of British Philatelic Societies (ABPS) Exhibitions and International Committee announces that it is inviting exhibits of ephemera to be entered at Autumn Stampex.

'Ephemera' covers a vast range of printed and written items designed for a specific purpose - from beer mats to greetings cards and from pamphlets to train tickets. It provides fascinating insights into cultural trends over the centuries and generates much interest among collectors.

Exhibitors of ephemera can enter competitively so that their exhibits will be judged according to the competition rules, or they can enter non-competitively.

Advice on how to enter

Call for contributions to 'Members’ Corner'

All members and friends have you an interesting or intriguing piece from your collection to share in the Summer issue of "The Ephemerist"?

The Ephemerist

Newly designed and beautiful, full of intrigue and interest, vibrant and gorgeous the Spring issue of The Ephemerist, the society's journal, was posted to members in April. A year’s membership of The Ephemera Society entitles you to four issues in 2018. Join us! The Ephemera Society is always pleased to welcome new members. Payment can now be made online via PayPal.

• In this 32pp issue:
• Dreaming of the South Seas | Barbara Lyon
• Producing a popular journal, 1934 | Ray Bishop
• Eritrean ‘askaris’ — Italy’s colonial troops | Martin Plaut
• Moving paper | Maurice Collins
• Book prize labels | Graham Hudson
• Plus regular favourites | Mrs Pepys' Diary and Notes & Queries

Valentines: Highlights from the Collection at The Fitzwilliam Museum

Author: Rebecca Virag

the Fitzwilliam Museum has a large collection of around 1,600 Valentines, which range in date from the early eighteenth century to the 1920s. The vast majority were left to the Museum in 1928 by mathematician and Fellow of Trinity College, J.W.L. Glaisher.

Two more Cambridge alumni, the Rev. Herbert Bull (Trinity) and Sir Stephen Gaselee (King’s) also gave their much smaller collections of valentines to the Museum in 1917 and 1942. The Bull valentines are particularly fascinating as they are rare survivals of mid-eighteenth century silhouette cut-paper work and are unlike anything collected by either Glaisher or Gaselee. The Glaisher collection alone is one of the largest amassed by a single collector currently in a UK public collection.

The Glaisher valentines have not been seen in public since 1995, some twenty-three years ago and since then the entire valentine collection has been catalogued, researched, photographed and re-housed. This selection of highlights has been published to coincide with a new display of some of these extraordinary objects as part of the exhibition, The Object of my Affection: stories of love from the Fitzwilliam collection (Until 28 May, 2018).

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Printing for the workplace: industrial and business publishing

Thursday 12 July 2018 · 9AM - 5PM · Gladstone's Library, Hawarden, Flintshire, Wales

Every company that has ever issued a catalogue, advertising leaflet or annual report, can be regarded either as a publisher or a user of publishing services, and their products can be termed either ‘industrial’ or ‘business publishing’.

For the purpose of this conference ‘industrial and business publishing’ is defined as the production and issuing of commercial literature that not only utilizes the skills of traditional publishing (authorship, editorial direction, the commissioning of artists, designers and photographers) but also necessitates the supervision of printing and distribution. These customary activities are, however, executed by—or for—an industry for which publishing is not the primary business.

Industries not engaged in printing as their primary concern have also utilised printing for the manufacturing of its products which may use substrates other than paper: for example transfer printing in the production of ceramics or enamel or the printing on tin.

The association between industry and publishing is not new. Papers are invited that consider its development from its earliest days through to the end of the twentieth century, by which time the issuing of printed matter had become an important ancillary manufacturing activity and industrial publishing finally recognised as a professional adjunct to business.

Papers are also welcome that not only consider the design, production and distribution of industrial and business publishing, but also the companies that issued it, the jobbing printers that produced it, and the clients who used it.

Papers of twenty-minutes duration are invited for this interdisciplinary conference from postgraduates, independent researchers and established scholars.

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