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Announcing: Catalog #255 (for February, 2017) is now available…
February 2, 2017 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Rare Newspapers’ monthly offering of collectible newspapers, Catalog 255, is now available. This latest collection of authentic newspapers is comprised of more than 350 new items. Some of the noteworthy content includes: Rivington’s New York Gazetteer, the Oxford Gazette, Washington’s miracle escape from Long Island, “War Declared” in a Honolulu newspaper, the death of Marilyn Monroe in a Los Angeles newspaper, a great graphic issue on Abraham Lincoln, and more. Key items which include the remaining items from the above may be viewed at: Noteworthy Catalog 255
Whereas the entire catalog is shown at Catalog 255, the following links are intended to aid in quickly finding items from the catalog based on era:
1500-1799 (full view OR quick-scan/compact view)
1800-1899 (full view OR quick-scan/compact” view)
1900-2015 (full view OR quick-scan/compact” view)
To view items from both the current and the previous catalog, go to: Combined Catalog
Note: The links shown above will expire in approximately 30 days.
My Collecting Story… Robert (Bob) Cassidy…
September 3, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
A few years ago, I bought a newspaper. I had a collection that I had started saving as a youngster, as events happened, but ordering one [again, as an adult] opened up a whole new world. Now I have the Hughes’ papers in cases, and earlier collection in storage. While I have never met Guy nor Doreen, I feel that they are friends, who have been with me during some pretty tough times. What is the most exciting thing that has happened during the collection process? For a couple of generations my family had thought that my great great grandfather had been buried in a mass grave at the site of the Battle of Fairoaks in Virginia during the Civil War. Last year Doreen found a newspaper that indicated that he, William White, had survived the battle and had been transported with other wounded to the D.C. area. What could be more exciting than that?
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Thanks for sharing your story Dave. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.
My Collecting Story… David Cunningham…
August 20, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
I started collecting newspapers about 2-3 years ago. Originally I collected US coins and baseball cards but transitioned to picture postcards from the early 1900’s. I wanted to go back further in time so I started to collect letters/stampless letters from the 1800’s including a few neat letters from the Civil War. In my quest to find earlier documents I stumbled upon your rarenewspaper website. I was amazed that newspapers could be had from the 1600/1700’s. Too bad I didn’t find out sooner.
My favorite era is newspapers from the Revolutionary War and the early formation of the United States government. Friends and relatives are amazed when I show them a newspaper with George Washington’s name in it. A few of the papers have names of officers who were engaged in the Revolutionary war. To me that makes it very historical since I know an active participant actually read that paper.
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Thanks for sharing your story Dave. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.
My Collecting Story… Paul Sarna…
August 6, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · 3 Comments
The first newspaper I believe I ever collected was for the 1968 Kentucky Derby followed later that month by the ’68 Indianapolis 500 (timely to write this since it’s the month of May [when Paul wrote this] and I’m going to the Indy 500 once again this year). I was only 6 years old at the time, but proud years later, that I started collecting newsworthy newspapers at such an early age. 1968, needless to say, was quite a year and I’m glad to this day that I never sold any of the newspapers I collected when I first started (though I admit I did not keep them in the best shape I could have….I didn’t realize 41 years later that I’d still be collecting newspapers!!!). I think the first newspaper that I ever bought multiple copies of was for the first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971, but I am not sure.
Some of the best surprises I have had in collecting?….well 2 come to mind. One was purchasing, at a flea market in New York City, a Daily Morning Chronicle (Washington D.C.) of April 15, 1865 for about $20 in the late 80’s (I’m still kicking myself for even THINKING about selling that gem). Another purchase came at my table as a street vendor from a person I had never met, but came to my table to sell me this oversized box of newspapers. I initially did not want to purchase them because I used a handcart to bring my table and inventory home and the box was big, but luckily I didn’t delay the purchase and bought them [for $35] by just glancing over the top half of the stack. When I got home I saw a New York Herald Titanic first report with some wear at the fold. The newspaper seemed to have multiple section so I initially let it go and continued looking through the stack. At some point it then dawn on me that these might not merely be sections of the same newspaper and when I looked again, neatly tucked in were Titanic first reports in the New York Times and the New York World in great condition!
The most rewarding part of my experience with newspapers was the street vending of old newspapers (and magazines) I did in New York City from 1988 until 2004. Even though I did not have many repeat customers (or not as many as I would have liked), it was rewarding. Not just for merely “making a living”, but for the people that had that certain look on their faces when they saw something that caught them by surprise or for when tourists from all over the country and world would take a photo of my stand as a memory of their visit.
Newspapers collecting is something I will ALWAYS do, and now is a good time to thank Tim, Guy, Doreen, Marc and everybody in the Rare Newspapers staff for helping me pursue my endless goal of collecting newspapers.
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Thanks for sharing your story Paul. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.
My Collecting Story… Gregory Christiano…
July 23, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Many people think of a newspaper as ephemera, something to be thrown away after you read it or to be used to wrap fish or make silly hats. I never looked at it that way. After college graduation in 1969 I began to get an interest in antiquarian books, maps, prints and other collectibles. It wasn’t until I saw an ad in the paper for historic and antique newspapers. I sent away for the catalogue and notice a reference to a baseball game with line and box scores in a New York paper from 1865. I was curious and spent $2.00 to purchase it. Well, that got me hooked. Being an avid baseball fan, I lost all control and purchased dozens of those early papers with accounts of baseball games. In those early days (1970’s) it was relatively inexpensive to buy 19th century newspapers. There were only a few dealers and I became a regular customer. Timothy Hughes was one of my very first suppliers. I was never disappointed with the condition and the authenticity of my purchases.
When I first started collecting these papers, I had to learn about their fragility the hard way. I try to keep my collection pre-1870’s because those newspapers were printed on rag cloth and can be preserved a very long time. The technology to print newspapers on pulp had been around since the mid-nineteenth century but really picked up by the later`part of the 1870’s. My collection includes late 19th-century and twentieth century issues. Most of them are crumbling to the touch because of the sawdust-composite nature of newsprint. My bound volume of the NY Herald from 1877 is turning to dust. I do have a unique bound volume of the New York Times from early 1940’s printed on silk for archive storage. I picked that up at an auction in the early 1980s. To this day it looks brand new! My 20th-century collection is becoming brittle with each day, even after taking precautions to preserve these cherished papers. They are discolored and disintegrating. That’s why libraries have placed all their collections on microfiche.
I just don’t have the discretionary cash to have a professional paper conservator preserve my entire collection. I use the standard acid-free buffered boxes and folders (careful to keep the newspaper unfolded), storing my collection in a dark environment with a stable temperature between 65 and 70 degrees.
Most of my collection consists of mostly 19-century New York City papers – Sunday Mercury, Herald, Tribune, World, Sun, Times, Daily Star, Daily Graphic, then into the twentieth-century with Herald-Tribune, World, Telegram and Sun, Journal American, Mirror, Daily News. Then I branched out to Colonial and Revolutionary period, with titles like Dunlap and Claypool American Daily Advertiser (1790s – I have about four issues), The Aurora (Benjamin Franklin Bache – 1790s), Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser from 1793 [the forerunner to Dunlap’s paper].
I also have some sporting magazines, Porter’s Spirit of the Times, Wilke’s Spirit of the Times, and of course, Harper’s Weekly and others. Today I concentrate on specific issues of interest for me, like early reporting on rapid transit in New York City [the New York Daily Graphic has some terrific illustrations of the early elevated lines, like the Gilbert Elevated RR, sporting events, Civil War accounts etc.
Some rare titles: Day’s New-York Bank Note List, Counterfeit Detector and Price Current. published 1826-1859 [I collect bank notes and coins also]… Demorest’s New York Illustrated News…a couple of 1864 copies. Greenleaf’s New-York Journal & Patriotic Register (late 1790s) – I have a couple of these. On and on and on. They are too numerous to list here. I’ve been collecting for over 30 years, and am still fascinated with every issue I have in my collection.
I am on mailing lists and receive constant updates on what is available. The prices have gone up, but still reasonable. What copies I can’t obtain, I can see at the New York Public Library where I go to access their microfilm department to read and photocopy some of the rarer issues. There is nothing like reading history as it happened, by eyewitnesses as the events unfolded. With the future of newspapers in question, collecting them is even more important. Yesterday’s newspapers are not dead, not irrelevant, but still alive:
This is what really happened, reported by a free press to a free people. It is the raw material of history; it is the story of our own times. -Henry Steel Commager, preface to a history of the New York Times, 1951
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Thanks for sharing your story Gregory. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.
My Collecting Story… Brendan Dwyer…
July 9, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
Here is my antique newspaper collecting story. Not how I got started, but in the middle:
—–I moved to Nantucket [see 19th century image] in 1997 and fell in love with it’s rich history—-whaling, Quakers, isolation, American Revolution neutralism, etc.—Well–in 1795 a bank robbery occurred here where around $20,000 was taken in various international currency ( keep in mind the date and the world travels of the whaling industry). This robbery shocked and shucked the town whereby feuds developed and lasted for generations. All very interesting. Well, I found out the court dates of the accused robbers and the newspapers which covered the proceedings. I had been buying antique newspapers from [Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers] for a number of years, so I searched [the] site and found several of the newspapers which covered the court proceedings.
Keep in mind this was from 1795!!!!! Just amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thanks for sharing your story Brendan. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.
My Story… Carl Aspler…
May 14, 2009 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment
For me, I love history and the first time I came across an old paper (I think it was the coronation of George V in 1911), I was smitten. I loved reading the headlines as they were years ago.
In the 80’s I also began collecting antique maps (also my love of history and discovery), and these took over for a while. Now I have antique maps and newspapers!
What gets me excited about the old news is to enjoy the personal connection that people make with the various stories. For example I used to keep a number of the front pages framed in my office at work. One day, a colleague came in and told me how he had admired the “Titanic Sinking” headline. This fellow, originally from Northern Ireland, told me that his father worked at the Belfast shipyard that built the ship, and that he had actually worked on the building of the Titanic. After thinking about it for a while, I gave him the paper. It meant a lot to him, and we all had a few tears in our eyes.
On another occasion I was talking to a friend and discovered that his father had been a soldier in the Canadian Army and had participated in the ill-fated Dieppe Raid in 1942. His father was captured by the Germans and spent the rest of the war in a Prisoner Camp. When I showed his the newspaper from a few days later, mentioning his father as “missing in action” it was also a very moving moment. I decided that I can live without it, and gave it to him.
Yet another time I mentioned to someone in the Salvation Army that I had a paper describing the sinking of the Empress of Ireland in 1914. The ship was on it’s way to an international congress of the Salvation Army. Most of the 150 members of the Army on board were drowned as was the Salvation Army Band. This was a difficult time for the Army (in fact the band was not reconstituted until 1969). I donated the paper to the Salvation Army museum, where more people can appreciate the story.
I also amaze my family from time to time. A few months ago, my teenage daughter was doing a history project on the London Blitz of 1940. I offered to loan her a front page describing the German first bombing assault on London. She originally wasn’t sure that people would be interested in an old newspaper. The fact that everyone thought it was “so cool” also gained me extra points with my daughter…
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Thanks for sharing your story Carl. If you would like to share your story of how you became interested in collecting rare and/or historic newspapers, e-mail it to guy@rarenewspapers.com and place “My Story” in the subject field. Although not necessary, feel free to include an image. Please do not include your e-mail address or a personal website as part of the text of your story. We will post collector stories every few weeks and will send you a notice when your story appears. Thank you for your contribution to the community.