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I’m New Here: A Few Changes…
January 31, 2020 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
This week has gone by in a blur. The (exciting) new catalog ships out tomorrow, and all the attendant hoopla has filled our schedules. It’s always a juggling act to maintain regular work around special projects, because there is plenty of the latter to pack our days.
A seasoned collector was filling gaps prior to an approaching exhibit, and he called to have me check a New York Times obituary in 1898. 
We didn’t have the date it ran, and I exhausted all the other major papers. However, the deceased was an abolitionist who also contributed to the effort to gain the vote for women. As a last ditch effort I pulled a volume of the Woman’s Journal from Washington DC, and found a lengthy tribute to Robert Purvis. Mr. G was quite pleased, and I felt triumphant with my find, particularly as it led me to delve into my favorite category – publications in which women played an important role. Although much content pertains to suffrage, there seems to have been an effort to provide a platform for intelligent discussion that encompassed many other aspects of life in the 1800’s. These journals are a valuable resource for a look into the 19th Century, and I am always glad to fulfill an order with one of these gems.
As I begin this second year here at Rare & Early Newspapers, I am planning to dedicate my last post each month to a look at our titles, beginning with the Woman’s Journal. Hopefully, I can unearth enough nuggets that you will all start to consider that a collection cannot possibly be complete without containing at least an issue or two from the Woman’s Tribune, The Woman’s Journal, The North Shore Review, the Ladies Magazine or Womankind.
Thank you for the kind comments and encouragement in this first year. I beg your continued forbearance as I wade more deeply into the water.
Cheers!
The January (2020) Newsletter from Rare & Early Newspapers…
January 27, 2020 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Each month the staff of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers sends out a newsletter to our members which includes special offers, discounts, alerts to new inventory, and information related to the rare newspaper collectible.
The October, 2019 newsletter:
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Welcome to the first member’s newsletter for 2020. Shown below are links to recently listed items (a great set – see below), newly discounted issues (50% off), the History’s Newsstand Blog, and our most recent catalog of original newspapers (Catalog 290). Please enjoy.
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I’m New Here: January 23, 2020
January 24, 2020 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
History’s Newsstand/ Rare & Early Newspapers has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and integrity; and procedures and processes are regularly evaluated to incorporate the highest quality systems available. Our website is undergoing some upgrades, most of which will be indiscernible to the average collector/follower. But in order to be certain things will indeed remain in order, I have been given the assignment to spend some time logging in and out and creating orders from an objective perspective.
As such, I have perused our web inventory – reading through descriptions and looking at photographs. I have completed numerous purchases the budget of my reality would never allow. And it has been great fun.
I learned two notable things. The first is that our website is an amazing tool to navigate the extraordinary inventory here. I searched date, title, topic, item number with successful outcomes. But most interesting to me was the list available by clicking the orange oval button “View All Categories”. This index of more than sixty topics, while not exhaustive, is a fabulous research resource. For those who regularly meander through online topics and items of interest, I encourage the home page of Rare Newspapers as a springboard for many happy hours of informative browsing.
As a second point of interest, I tagged the strangest report I encountered in my wanderings. It seems some of the earliest plastic surgery occurred in India and included rhinoplasty (although not identified as such). Through three separate avenues I arrived at the same description from The Gentleman’s Magazine, published in London, October of 1794.
Included is a fascinating–and extremely early–account of what we would call plastic surgery, being a letter from the East Indies which notes in part: “…the following very curious, and, in Europe, I believe, unknown chirugical [archaic spelling of ‘surgery’] operation which has long been practiced in India with success; namely affixing a new nose on a man’s face…” followed by the various details. Accompanying this is a full page plate of it, with 5 images (see).
Ironically, all these features and items are available on our website in its current state. I just hadn’t taken the time to look.
Have you?
I’m New Here: One Year In
January 17, 2020 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
This week I made two different forays into a subject I only visited once before — The Wild West. Thankfully, when you are dealing with a forty-four year old company that specializes in items printed hundreds of years ago, twelve months is not a long time. And that is good for me, because even when I tally up the number of days I have been here at Rare & Early Newspapers I still feel like a novice. Today I had back-to-back victories using the organizational system efficiently. Harper’s Weekly from 1912 is not in the front warehouse (designated “W” on location maps) with issues published through the end of the 19th Century, but in the annex (“A”) along the right wall, almost to the very end. Better still, as I confidently strode through the front building with an inward chuckle over my early bumbling efforts to determine what happened after December 30, 1899, I recalled the clipboard hanging in that area. Rather than maneuver the lift across four rows and down a 15′ column in order to ascend to the appropriate decade, I checked the sheet. There, recorded after exhausting all potential volume locations, was the notation, “August 17, 1912 — no cc”. So, a disappointing answer for the collector inquiring, but a resounding victory for me as the entire search took a total of three minutes.
Every time I can locate an issue someone is seeking, I feel victorious. But the worst thing is spending a lot of time (which is always needed elsewhere) without having anything to show for it. Today’s glance at the inventory tally reminded me that even a negative result can be useful, if not to me then surely to someone else. Anyway, I am finally reaching the stage where I am wasting less time when I head into the back in search of whatever someone has called, emailed, written or web queried about. In theory, the more time I save, the more I have to search out another Titanic issue (665700) for the collector in Germany or a Jay Gould cover portrait for the fellow in Minnesota.
And, for those of you who continue to read these posts, I will always make time to follow up on your requests. I might even write about them…
January through the years via the lens of Rare & Early Newspapers…
January 13, 2020 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Walk with us back through time to see what noteworthy, historic and collectible events occurred during the month of January. In so doing, we hope you’ll agree: “History is never more fascinating than when it’s read from the day it was first reported.”
January Through Time
Snapshot 1954… Ellis Island… The final chapter…
January 9, 2020 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
We recently came across a New York Times dated November 12, 1954 which told of the closing of Ellis Island, and included a large photo of the last group of immigrants to take the oath as new citizens (see below). If you’ve never visited this historic landmark, it is a moving experience – certainly worth the trip.
Announcing: Catalog #290 (for January, 2020) is now available…
January 7, 2020 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
- Catalog 290 (in its entirety)
- Noteworthy Catalog 290 ($250+)
- Combined Catalogs (current, w/ remnants of previous)
Don’t forget about this month’s DISCOUNTED ISSUES.
(The links above will redirect to the latest catalog in approx. 30 days, upon which time it will update to the most recent catalog.)
I’m New Here: Week Forty-Three…
January 3, 2020 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment
Recently, a collector asked me to verify the presence of a continuing report within the Gazette of the United States – the Davila Discourse, which discusses political implications of a republican form of government, as perceived by John Adams in the early days of the young country. Mr. K offered the information that the section title printed within the sub-heading was not accurate, but a misidentification on the part of the publisher. Instead, he referenced an outside scholarly source to identify the sequence of text.
My son was old enough during the 2000 presidential election to be fascinated with the process. At his request, his grandmother kept every newspaper from the week before, through the many days following that strange Tuesday in this nation’s history. Most notable in his collection, however, is the issue that proclaimed Al Gore as the winner. This week I began thinking about the erroneous publication of “news” at historically crucial times.
Various reports of death have been “grossly exaggerated” – in fact, Wikipedia has alphabetically indexed 14 pages of such premature obituaries. In the Rare and Early Newspaper world one of the most well-known gaffes is the Chicago Tribune “Dewey Defeats Truman”. As I am new and just learning of these, I am appalled to find yet another winding road away from the details I am supposed to be taking care of during my working day.
Ultimately, a thing is not true just because it appeared in print. However, an editorial error can be quickly identified by reviewing the publishing context. Those of this community who have a more seasoned perspective might enjoy sharing some favorite errors with me via this blog, in case an opportunity arises to do a little wandering in my second year…