Rare Book Monthly

Articles - November - 2020 Issue

In the Age of Ephemera

Books have long been the mainstay in the ‘printed’ category while other printed forms have periodically captured the headlines and imaginations of collectors and collecting institutions.  But we seem to be entering into a profound stage of change that is seeing the very definition of printed collectibles evolve in face of emerging visibility by subject, period and category.

 

This is of course nothing new.  Schools of painting come and go as do random subjects become an era’s bright and shiny object.  Furniture that bespeaks style as do categories of objects such as flags, models, weapons, and related objects also add immeasurably to collections.  Hence a famous printers’ press is hardly a giant step once a collector’s imagination has broken through the bounds that frame traditional collecting possibilities.

 

Epic collecting was once the sole preserve of wildly wealthy collectors, museums and highly significant libraries that had knowledge, gumption and resources.  These days there is more money around and the internet rewards intense research revealing collecting focuses we never dreamed were possible.  Just a decade ago collecting seemed to fall into well-defined categories and now we seem to be living through the emergence of tens of thousands of seemingly random dots that become personal constellations.  It is a remarkable moment in the history of collecting as this extraordinary avocation is being restructured by information and personal interest rather than by dealer inventories that have structured their holdings into traditional collecting categories.  Voila, presto, there are a thousand ways to effectively collect.

 

While virtually all collecting disciplines are affected they are not equally altered.  Books have been suffering disproportionately because the great listing sites make it transparent how many copies are available when collectors are often looking for rare material.  Manuscripts, by comparison, are unique and often have few comparable options.  Printed maps tend to have multiple copies as do engravings.  And then there is ephemera and what is it?

 

A large portion of collectible printing was intended to survive.  However, ephemera is/was essentially ‘created for the moment’ and is/was not expected to survive.  Few precautions hence were taken to record, define and explain such items although through the prism of time such objects are often intensely interesting.  Books, by comparison, have documented history that is built transaction by transaction when they pass though auction rooms.  Ephemera has a much slimmer history, in part because identification is often difficult when neither date nor place are provided when its location was self-evident.  Here are a few examples; announcements that ships, boats or barges are to set sail.  Posters for entertainments such as Romeo and Juliet at 8:00pm often suggest a poster was provided on the day at the place for the event.  Menus too don’t necessarily tell a complete story, just what’s for dinner, not necessarily the day and year, not even for sure the place.  Photographs often tell us only what we can piece together from what we can see.  So such items only tell a fragmentary account.

 

Taken together however such material often can tell us a great deal about the past.

 

This in a small way begins to explain the power of ephemera and why such material is increasingly finding its way into auctions.  It’s often inexpensive, fragmentary and incompletely described.  Hence, the collector or institution has to have an educated perspective to guess at what or how material fits in.

 

All this said, the future for ephemera is robust.  We expect 30% of all auction lots will focus on or include such material over the next 10 years.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Fonsie Mealy’s
    Rare Books & Collectors’ Sale
    April 30th & May 1st
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Taylor (Geo.) & Skinner (A.) Maps of the Roads of Ireland, Surveyed 1777. Lond. & Dublin 1778. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Messingham (Thos.) Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum seu Vitae et Acta Sanctorum Hibernia, Paris 1624. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus). The Haw Lantern, L. (Faber & Faber) 1987, First Edn., Signed and dated. €225 to €350.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Valencey (Lt. Col. Chas.) Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis, Vols. I-IV, 4 vols. Dublin 1786. €400 to €600.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Powerscourt (Viscount). A Description and History of Powerscourt, Lond. 1903. €350 to €500.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Moryson (Fynes). An Itinerary ... Containing His Ten Yeeres Travel Through the Twelve Dominions of Germany, Bohermerland, Sweitzerland…, Lond. (John Beale) 1617. €700 to €1,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: After Buffon, Birds of Europe, c. 1820. Approx. 120 fine hd. cold. plts., mor. backed boards. €125 to €250.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Dunlevy (Andrew). An Teagasg Criosduidhe De Reir Ceasda agus Freagartha... The Catechism or Christian Doctrine by Way of Question and Answer, Paris (James Guerin) 1742. €400 to €700.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: The Georgian Society Records of Eighteen-Century Domestic Architecture in Dublin, 5 vols. Complete, Dublin 1909-1913. €500 to €750.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Scale (Bernard). An Hibernian Atlas or General Description of the Kingdom of Ireland, L. (Robert Sayer & John Bennet) 1776. €625 to €850.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: [Johnson (Rev. Samuel)]. Julian the Apostate Being a Short Account of his Life, together with a Comparison of Popery and Paganism,L. (Langley Curtis) 1682. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Nichlson (Wm.) Illustrator. An Almanac of Twelve Sports, Lond. 1898. €300 to €400.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) trans. The Light of the Leaves, 2 vols., Mexico (Imprenta de los Tropicos/Bunholt) 1999. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Fleming (Ian). Moonraker, L. (Jonathan Cape) 1955. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Fonsie Mealy’s, Apr 30-May 1: Heaney (Seamus) & Egan (Felim) artist. Squarings, Twelve Poems, D. (Hieroglyph Editions Ltd.) 1991. €1,750 to €2,250.

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