Below we continue our series in which we post the “stories” graciously submitted by our collecting friends during the pandemic of 2020.
How I got into collecting was on one afternoon in the late 80s my Grandmother pulled out all these newspapers she kept and I spent hours just going through them. She had all the JFK, Bobby Kennedy, MLK newspapers including the newspapers on the march Dr. King had a few days before his death, the Moon landing, Vietnam, Watergate, the hostage crisis in Iran and last but not least every newspaper on the death of Elvis. I was hooked after looking at all these and every chance I got I would pull them out just to look at them again. This did annoy her but it kept me occupied.
The first newspaper I kept that got my own collection going was the newspaper on the death of Lucille Ball, in April 1989. I don’t know why I stopped after that but I didn’t pick up the hobby again until The Gulf War in 1991 and I haven’t stopped since. For Christmas of 1996, my Grandmother gave me all her newspapers which was the second best gift I got that Christmas, hey you can’t beat a car.
In 1998, my collection began to change when I started ordering newspapers from another company. I received several newspapers and I would never have found around here at any antique shops. I stopped ordering from them because they had a lack of interest in customer service In 2006 I discovered Hughes Rare and Early Newspapers and I will never order a newspaper from anyone else.
From that one newspaper from 1989 my collection now stands in the thousands. I have newspapers from every decade going back to the 1680s. My favorites are newspapers on The Salem Witch Trials, a map of the British Colonies in North America in 1754, and so many more that would fill this page. But some of my personal favorites are ones that would probably not be considered historic such as papers I’ve collected on movie openings and newspaper articles on TV shows that I liked such as Lost, Game of Thrones and all things Star Wars.
If you ask me why should you collect old newspapers I would have to say if you want to know what really happened and how the people felt about them, read an old newspaper don’t listen to some talking head on television who has their own bias on the subject. Hope I didn’t bore you.
As additional “stories” are posted they will be available at: MY COLLECTING STORY [1]. We did this many years ago as well – and their posts are also included.