The plight of newspapers & its impact on the hobby…

April 20, 2009 by · 3 Comments 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

rocky-mountain-newsIn recent years–and to a greater degree recent months–we’ve been hearing about the demise of the newspaper, at least that edition which has appeared on newsstands & doorsteps for many generations. Much blame goes to the internet and our increasingly digital society, although the proliferation of cable news, now available 24 hours a day, shares in the blame as well.

For us hobbyists, who have collected the “hard copy” while they are still rolling off the presses across America, what will the impact be if print editions die off completely?

seatle-post-intelligencerIf the past is any example I would suggest there will be heightened interest in collecting newspapers. Much of what is popular today in the collecting world are items which are now obsolete: phonograph records, old telephones, mustache cups, treadle sewing machines, and on and on.  While one school of thought is that interest is heightened once an item is no longer produced, another thought is that collecting interest will fade when they are no longer produced. How many thousands of items which have faded from memory & long ago ceased production are not on the “radar” of collectors?

Let hear of your thoughts. You are the collectors; your passion and holdings may well be impacted one way or the other if current newspapers cease publication. How do you think this could impact the hobby?

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Announcements, Business News, Collecting Newspapers, The Hobby
Tagged: , ,

Wishful thinking…

April 18, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

obit_john_gayreThe “Epitaph” shown in the photo is taken from the Columbian Centinel, Extra newspaper from Boston, Nov. 26, 1806. The graphic devises add a bit of charm to the simple–perhaps hopeful–thought:

“I John Gayre, am ready to swear,
That thought I lie here, I’m yet up there.”

Rare & early newspapers never cease to provide a bit of comic relief to the harsh edge of life.  Enjoy!

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Unusual, Fun & Bizarre
Tagged: ,

Collection Spotlight: One man’s passion for pulp… From Antique Trader…

April 16, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

Joe Rainone, a member of the Rare & Early Newspapers Community, recently had a featured article in a post at AntiqueTrader.com.  His passion is focused primary on pulp magazines, with some cross-over to collectible newspapers.  The article begins:

joe_rainone“My passion for collecting started in the mid 1980s although I did enjoy collecting stamps, coins and reading comics as a child. I started to collect comic books again with my 9-year-old son who loved Spider-Man. This was my introduction to popular fiction.

I became intrigued with pulp magazines. In time, I became more interested, not only in the artwork, but also the history of how and where it all began…”

To read more, go to http://www.antiquetrader.com/article/One_mans_passion_for_pulp.  Great job Joe!

The rare newspaper community is pregnant with scores of members with their own collectible passion.  One of the beauties of the hobby is the endless varieties of directions one’s collection can go.  If you’d like to share about your collectible area of interest, please do.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: The Hobby
Tagged: , , ,

Collectible Magazines… Rich West… Periodyssey – Part II

April 13, 2009 by · 1 Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

Tammy Kahn Fennell at Collectibles Corner TV recently completed part II of her interview with Rich West of Periodyssey fame.  Part II of the interview begins at the 3:32 mark; however,  if you have the time, the entire episode is worth watching.  Thanks Tammy… and Rich.

Episode #10 – Depression Glass, Colophon, Rich West of Periodyssey part 2, Get Me Video

Note from the previous post re: the interview with Rich:

Although Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers’ archives contain nearly every issue of Gentleman’s Magazine, Harper’s Weekly (actually an illustrated newspaper), Harper’s Monthly, The Sporting News, and a selection of others (Liberty Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Scribner’s, etc.), including many of these and others beyond what is posted on the Rare & Early Newspapers website, the Timothy Hughes of magazine collecting is Rich West of Periodyssey.  He operates with integrity, has an incredible inventory of magazines to offer, and is the most knowledgeable resource in the field of magazine collectibles.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Featured Websites, Items of Interest
Tagged: , , , ,

Editorial policy (?) and the potential impact upon an issue’s collectibility…

April 11, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

The following are a few thoughts by Morris Brill (guest contributor) concerning slight differences in the printing of the Declaration of Independence within the London Chronicle (dated August 17, 1776) vs. the printing within the Gentleman’s Magazine (dated August, 1776):

Recently on Ebay two different sellers offered a printing of the Declaration of Independence in the Gentleman’s Magazine.  I also noted your offering of the Declaration within the London Chronicle.

I (Morris) noted, while reading the text of Gentleman’s Magazine, as photographed on Ebay, a particular sentence in which two words were missing and substituted with a line, i.e. ___________

editorial_license1The sentence is as follows:

“A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

In the Gentleman’s Magazine the words ” prince” and “tyrant” are deleted.

I find it interesting that although the Gentleman’s Magazine and the the London Chronicle are both British that one paper printed the words prince and tyrant, yet the other did not.

To me, the deletion of the two words certainly diminishes the historic value of the printing as it appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, although I would not pass up the opportunity to own this paper. Perhaps it has to do with an opposing editorial policy, or the political persuasion of the two publishers.

Morris

Note:  If anyone is aware of the formal policy which led to the deletion of certain words within the Gentleman’s Magazine, please share your insight with the rare newspaper community.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Common Questions, Guest Posts, The Hobby
Tagged: , , , , ,

Double-dated newspapers: the Julian and Gregorian calendars…

April 9, 2009 by · 1 Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

london_gazette_issue_1601If you have some 1600’s newspapers in your collection you may have a few with dates showing years as “1683/4″ or 1686/7”, or perhaps you have a few issues from a single year where a later date has an issue number lower than an earlier date, and you’ve wondered “how could this be?” Well, it’s due to the calendar, or more specifically which calendar was in use at the time.

Although the differences between the older Julian calendar and our current Gregorian calendar are many and very complicated and can be understood by visiting this site, the short answer is that in the latter part of the 17th century  & a portion of the 18th century both calendars were in use in England, and the date of the issue would reflect which calendar was in use.

london_gazette_issue_1602The new year of the older Julian calendar began on March 21, so an issue dated March 17, 1675 would be followed by the next weekly issue dated March 24, 1676.  This would also mean that an issue dated December 31, 1675 would be followed by an issue dated January 7,1675. This was how the London Gazette dated it’s issues for much of the 17th and early 18th centuries. At first glance one would think that the issue of Jan. 7, 1675 was older than one dated December 31, 1675, but the opposite was true.

observator_double_datedOther titles were a bit more helpful in noting the year of publication by dating issues from January 1 thru March 20 with a double-dated year such as “1684/5” or “1686/7” so the reader would know that it was from the year 1684 under the Julian calendar, or 1685 under the Gregorian calendar.

Some American newspapers of the 18th century have similar double dates, but by the beginning of the 19th century–if not reasonably before–newspapers had converted exclusively to the Gregorian calendar. The same was true with most of the Western world, while other portions of the globe adopted the Gregorian dating system much later.

Hopefully this answers a few questions  you have had. Be in touch if we can be more helpful!

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Common Questions, The Hobby
Tagged: , , , ,

Numbering an issue….how was it done?

April 6, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

numbering_issues_11The numbers noted at the top of the front page of a newspaper, typically at the far left and right of the dateline, may seem a bit confusing so I’ll try to explain what they mean.

Most newspapers had two sets of numbers: 1) the issue & volume numbers, and 2) the whole number.

The issue & volume number often appear such as “Vol. 5 num. 237” which means this is the 237th issue from the fifth year of the newspapers existence. Newspapers would assign a volume number to their publication which would increase by one on the anniversary of its beginning, so if a newspapers published it’s first issue on March 5, 1837, volume two would begin with the first publication after March 5, 1838. The issue number notes the issue from within that volume, meaning that issue “Vol. 5 num. 313” might be followed by issue “Vol. 6 num. 1” if the newspaper published 6 days a week (365 days less 52 Sundays = 313 published issues in the year).

numbering_issues_21But to many the more mysterious number is the “whole number”. Essentially it indicates how many issues have been published since the founding of the paper, and can be a very large number if the paper has been in publication for many years.

Using the above example of “vol. 5 num. 313” the “whole number” of this issue would likely be 1565 (313 issues per year x 5 years = 1565). And the very next issue, noted as “vol. 6 num 1” would be whole number 1566.

numbering-_issues_31The tricky thing is that when some newspapers were sold, reorganized, changed their name, or merged with another they might begin a “new series” and the volume/issue numbers would begin afresh, and the whole number may or may not start over with number 1, depending on the whim of the publisher.  So these numbers cannot be depended upon to give an accurate reflection of how old the newspaper is, nor the number of issues that were printed since its inception. Niles’ National Register did this at least twice in its 40 years’ existence.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Collecting Newspapers, Common Questions
Tagged: , , , ,

Don’t tell the Chamber of Commerce…

April 4, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

santa-feA brief piece in the “Niles’ National Register” newspaper of Baltimore, January 14, 1843, obviously came from a disgruntled visitor to the West:

“Capt. Kendall, in describing Santa Fe, says it is a little mud-built city, that stands between civilization and the jumping off place.”

If you’ve visited Sante Fe, New Mexico recently, you can certainly attest to the significant improvements which have been made since 1843.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Pre Civil War, The 19th Century, Unusual, Fun & Bizarre
Tagged: , ,

Red (British) tax stamps… They appear to be random…

April 2, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

red_ink_stamp_2Recently a member inquired as to why the red-ink British tax stamps seemed to appear randomly within an issue – sometimes on the frontpage, sometimes on the backpage, and at other times somewhere within the issue. Although we had our thoughts on the subject, we called upon a collector of red-ink stamp issues, Randall Burt.  His thought substantiated our “hunch”:

“These newsprint publishers bought their stock from the
paper makers, and then were required by law to pay the paper tax on it at the gov’t
house where the paper was taxed at current rates.   The stamp was applied on
the blank sheets [pre-printing], then taken to their newspaper office where the news was added.

red_ink_stamp_1These tax stamps were not always in a desirable place for the collector. J.H. Chandler & H. Dagnall wrote extensively on this subject in their “Newspaper & Almanac Stamps of
Great Britain,” as did several other noted revenue writers.” Randall Burt

Thanks for your insight Randall.

If you have additional questions you would like to see addressed through the History’s Newsstand Blog, please comment to this post of send your questions to guy@rarenewspapers.com.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Collecting Newspapers, Common Questions, Guest Posts, The Hobby
Tagged: , ,

Collectible Magazines… Rich West… Periodyssey…

April 1, 2009 by · 1 Comment 
Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

Although Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers’ archives contain nearly every issue of Gentleman’s Magazine, Harper’s Weekly (actually an illustrated newspaper), Harper’s Monthly, The Sporting News, and a selection of others (Liberty Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, Scribner’s, etc.), including many of these and others beyond what is posted on the Rare & Early Newspapers website, the Timothy Hughes of magazine collecting is Rich West of Periodyssey.  He operates with integrity, has an incredible inventory of magazines to offer, and is the most knowledgeable resource in the field of magazine collectibles.  Lou Kahn and his daughter Tammy Kahn Fennell recently interviewed Rich for Collectibles Corner TV.  Feel free to enjoy the entire video or advance to the 5 minute mark to catch only the portion of the show containing the interview with Rich.  Rumor has it they’ll be doing a follow-up interview with Rich West shortly.  Please Enjoy:

Episode #9 – Occupied Japan, Provenance, Antique Quilts, American Periodicals, Rich West of Periodyssey

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy...

Filed under: Announcements, Business News
Tagged: , ,

« Previous Page — Next Page »