A video look at Rare & Early Newspapers – revisted…

September 23, 2013 by · Leave a Comment 

Over the past 10 years we (RareNewspapers.com) have put together a series of videos designed to help educate novices about the hobby of collecting historic newspapers.  While some may be a smidge old (compared to today’s high-tech standards), the information within is still pertinent. Pick a topic of interest, turn up the volume, and enjoy our perspective on the collectible.

Collecting 20th Century Authentic Newspapers

Enhance Your Sports Collectible with Historic Ne…

Collecting Scientific American Issues w/ Historic Content

Collecting 19th Century Authentic Newspapers

Original Wild West Era Newspapers – Rare Newspapers

Meet the Staff of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers

Harper’s Weekly & The Civil War – Illustrated Collectibles!

The History of Rare & Historic Newspapers & The Hobby!

Collecting 18th Century (and earlier) Authentic Newspapers

The Rare Newspapers’ Private Collection – Collecting Ideas

Rare Newspapers as an Educational Tool

The Traveler… who really invented “the talkies”?

August 26, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

Today’s journey, through The Christian Science Monitor dated August 26, 1910, took me on the train ride with Colonel Roosevelt as he was traveling across the states on his campaign tour. I found a segment a bit amusing… “At Erie the Colonel spoke to fully 5000 people. At Dunkirk a crowd nearly as large surrounded the train, and some one shouted, ‘Hello, Teddy!’ ‘I used to think it lowered my dignity to have them call me Teddy,’ the colonel said to his party in an undertone, ‘but do you know I am getting to like it now.'” A this point in time, one just somewhat “assumes” that he was always called Teddy.

While looking further into the issue, I found a one paragraph article with a headline “Mr. Edison Works On A New Device” and I just had to read it.  “Moving pictures that talk, reproducing not only the action, but the spoken words of actors shown on the canvas, promise to revolutionize the moving picture business and the announcement that a machine that will combine the perfected phonograph with the present motion picture camera is being constructed in the laboratory of Thomas A. Edison in West Orange, has created a stir among inventors.”

This made me wonder just when were “talkies” invented and who invented it? Was this ground-breaking news? I did some researching through google. In the late 1890’s, there were some sound to movies but each person had to wear a listening device — early headsets??  Mr. Edison is mentioned as to be working on creating a special machine to make the “talkies” but the first talk was not to be until 1927 with the release of The Jazz Singer.

~The Traveler

The Traveler… a ghost of a dog…

August 12, 2010 by · Leave a Comment 

This week I did not select an issue of today’s date, instead I found the Connecticut Mirror dated August 13, 1810 instead.  The front page of this issue begins with providing to the public the celebrated secret message of President Jefferson, on the 6th of December, 1805. This message was in respect of the relations of the United States with Spain and France concerning Louisiana. When I first saw this, I thought back to the 1970’s when Watergate occurred with the “missing minutes” of tape. Here they had secret messages that finally were revealed to the public five years later.

The story that was the eye-catcher was found on the back page, entitled “Ghost of a Dog”. This comes from a Dublin paper reporting of a lady who was scratched by a neighborhood dog, but she viewed it as a “breach of hospitality” that she demanded an order of execution on the dog. This was done, in a strange manner, and the dog’s body was retrieved by some friends. With some very unusual tactics over a course of about three weeks, the dog was able to run about as usual, make his rounds to visit his old friends, including meeting up with the lady he had scratched. She was so terrified that she fell into fits and at the time of the report was near death.  Now… what’s the old saying… what goes around, comes around???

~The Traveler