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I’m New Here: Week Twenty-Five…
August 9, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment 
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I began this post with a completely different musing on the world of collecting. However, one hundred and twenty words into it I received a query concerning the content of an issue posted on one of the web market places. After my research concluded, I cleared my page to begin again.
We had a 1927 New York Times listed for sale, and the request was to verify whether or not a name was mentioned within the feature story. And so, for the first time ever, I read about the USS S-4, a submarine that was rammed by a Coast Guard ship off of Massachusetts on December 17th. Of the forty on board, six crew members survived long enough to signal their location. For three days the divers heard sounds of life; then the tapping ceased. One of the rescue team almost lost his life attempting to attach an air hose to the cavity in which the small group had huddled. His buddy eventually received a medal for saving him.
It is horrible to follow the words of hope and heroic blow-by-blow efforts as diver after diver took a dangerous shift in the turbulence, spurred by the Morse signals from the submarine, “Is there any hope?” Finally, reluctantly, the tragic designation was issued, “lost with all hands.”
If I read the historical bits correctly, it took three months to raise the sub, which (“who” to all those in the habit of employing the feminine pronoun for a ship) was utilized for another five years following the disaster. My contact today was looking for the name of his grandfather among the divers who battled weather and odds in the hours following the crash. And he is there. The name I was commissioned to seek is nestled within the sentence, “First diver to the scene was ______________” For a full column the radioed conversations from command to scene are reported word-by-word. These were clearly the exchanges of men determined to save their fellow men, at great cost and against reasonable hope. And my imagination had me within that family, hearing bits and pieces of this epic event through the years. Perhaps he never talked about it at all. Either way, the very words spoken as one diver worked through the obstacles are here on the pages within an issue that we will carefully package and ship out to his grandson.
For me, this personal narrative embedded within a national tragedy eclipsed every other treasure found in a week packed with collectors seeking titles spanning from Virginia Gazettes to Village Voices.
I just had to share.
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Great Headlines Speak For Themselves… Martin Luther King Jr. march on Washington and speech…
August 8, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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The best headlines need no commentary. Such is the case with the HERALD EXAMINER, Los Angeles, August 28, 1963: reporting on the March which ended with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s historic, “I have a dream…” speech: “THE GREAT MARCH At Least 200,000“
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I’m New Here: Week Twenty-Four…
August 2, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · 2 Comments Email This Post
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Today someone asked me to choose the nicer of two issues. Each had the same date, the same title, the same price, and so a collector (who was in that particular instance selecting a gift) wanted to know which I thought best.
As many of my interactions are, this was a phone conversation. I offered to send photographs, but he said, “You told me my previous selection was beautiful, so I trust you.”
While that is a very nice compliment to give to “the new girl”, to be quite frank it worried me. Guy’s philosophy, when it comes to describing the condition of an item, is to set expectations low, and let the collector be pleasantly surprised. And it makes sense. He makes sense. We are shipping things hundreds of years old to folks hundreds of miles away. How can we possibly use common evaluations to describe Rare and Early items?
See, the truth is that I am a bit entranced by these old papers. I’m learning to see the browning, the foxing, and even the tears in very peripheral ways. Instead, every part of the oldest papers feels stately and significant. The decorative mastheads are fancy, but the straightforward block type conveys dependability and balance; loveliness can be displayed in a broad range of styles.
This young upstart country has packed a lot of history into two hundred and forty-three years, and these pages tell of the innovation and the expansion. They report virtues and crimes.
It’s a little magical to me to stand and contemplate volumes stuffed with the details that brought us to where we are today. For better, as they say, or worse.
An expert knows the wear and tear that decreases value, and our catalog prices often reflect that aspect. So, I’m not really the one to ask when you want to ascertain condition. If the words of the stories are there, I will probably tell you something hyperbolic like, “It’s stunning.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m transfixed.
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Snapshot 1852… Uncle Tom’s Cabin…
July 29, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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The following snapshot comes from the National Intelligencer dated December 28, 1852. Most are aware of the impact Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin had on the fabric of The United States, but not everyone saw eye-to-eye. The image below shows a blurb of a politically incorrect view from the northern region of the country.
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I’m New Here: Weeks Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three…
July 26, 2019 by Stephanie Williams · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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Time seems to be advancing at an ever-increasing pace. Each day is crammed with more tasks than can possibly be accomplished; I think this means I am beginning to get the hang of things. But Monday brought me up short a bit as I searched titles tracing a particular story which initially diverted to the Freedom Ride. As intriguing as the tone in those accumulating reports of bus rides through the South was, the heading on a neighboring column wrested my eyes and my thoughts. I had to know the reason that divorcees (such a fancy and outmoded term) spent a night in jail. At least that’s what I believed at the time. However, since it has been four days since I read the report and I am still ready to sound forth at a moment’s reflection, it might have been better if I stuck to the familiar angst over bus seats allocated by color of skin.
In case accompanying photographs do not tell enough story, women went to jail because deadbeat dads (such a crass and modern term) did not pay court-ordered child support. Just that. The year was 1963, and I suppose I am not meant to expect much else from the era — particularly that the freedom to assemble could possibly, legally, be constrained to a total of four persons.
Because, that was the crux of the charges — the reason for the headline: Night in Jail Makes Divorcees Contrite. “They promised that if they ever picket the County Building again to protest lagging support payments they will keep within the legal limit of four.” Fifty-six years ago a woman who was not receiving justice promised by the legal system had to promise to forego rights granted in 1791 by the First Amendment, even as she attempted to bring pressure to bear on the powers that be. Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think that this tiny fragment that sparks my ire is as important than any of the other Civil Rights /liberties that seem to have too limited of a citizenry to whom they are applied. And I am fiercely glad that the group of four swelled to an angry mob of twelve, bringing so much havoc upon the town that these single mothers had to be jailed in order to preserve the peace. Perhaps they were granddaughters of those who marched for Suffrage . It may be that they were inspired by other heroes that brought about change. Because things are not the same today. Here it helps me to take in the 1963 newspaper as a whole, reading again of the laws that were eventually impacted by two different groups. In 2019, wearied with seemingly insurmountable conflict, offense, discrimination and outright hatred, the neighboring headline, “11 Riders Quietly Leave for Mississippi Test Run” provides some perspective. Multiple barriers to equality remain, but many have been knocked down. Many barriers have been knocked down, but perhaps some have been worn away through the centuries by those whose stories are woven through old newspaper pages, those who find their own, quiet, persistent way to push back.
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The July (2019) Newsletter from Rare & Early Newspapers…
July 22, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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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 July, 2019 newsletter:
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Welcome to the July 2019 edition of our monthly
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The Village Voice… Greenwich Village, New York…
July 19, 2019 by GuyHeilenman · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Nat Hentoff, John Wilcock, Norman Mailer, Ezra Pound, Lynda Barry, Robert Christgau, Andrew Sarris, J. Hoberman, James Baldwin, E.E. Cummings, Ted Hoagland… Broadway and Off-Broadway theater reviews, the annual Obie Awards, upstart musicians and actors, progressive and left-leaning journalism… the beatnik, hippie , and Bohemian cultures…
Although we rarely use this space to announce new inventory, we’ve recently taken in a collection which is unique enough to warrant an exception. As many know, The Village Voice, the iconic newspaper from Greenwich Village, recently stopped printing new issues. However, over the years they had saved samples of a majority of their issues for the purpose of eventually creating a digital archive, and once done, we were able to procure the lion’s-share of their own collection. What a treat! Although I personally am unable to endorse portions of their content, their impact on culture as far as newspapers are concerned may very well be second to none. Over the next year or so collectors will begin to see listings appear through our website and our eBay store. In the meantime, if there are specific issues you would like to add to your collection, and can appreciate their provenance, please be in touch at guy@rarenewspapers.com. Our holdings include most issues from 1956 through close to the final publication.
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The Traveler… death comes to Teddy…
July 15, 2019 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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Back in January I traveled to Norwich, New York via the Chenango Telegraph of January 7, 1919, where I found a three line headline “Col. Theodore Roosevelt Is Dead At His Home at Sagamore Hill.” “The news that Col. Theodore Roosevelt is dead was received at this office at 5:30 o’clock Monday morning… The ex-president died at his home at Sagamore Hill at 4 o’clock this morning…”
Besides his presidency, Teddy is probably most known for his Rough-Riders in the Spanish-American War while serving in Cuba.
~The Traveler
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Great Headlines Speak For Themselves… Black Dahlia found…
July 11, 2019 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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The best headlines need no commentary. Such is the case with THE BOSTON POST, Massachusetts, January 17, 1947: “FORMER MEDFORD GIRL FOUND SLAIN“
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The Traveler… new wheels to get around…
July 9, 2019 by The Traveler · Leave a Comment Email This Post
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Nearly a year ago I journeyed to New York City by the means of the Scientific American, dated August 19, 1868, where I found the “Hanlon’s Patent Improved Velocipede”. “Within a few months the vehicle known as the velocipede has received an unusual degree of attention, especially in Paris, it having become in that city a very fashionable and favorite means of locomotion. To be sure the rider ‘works his passage,’ but the labor is less than that of walking, the time required to traverse a certain distance is not so much, while the exercise of the muscles is an healthful and invigorating. A few years ago, these vehicles were used merely as playthings for children, and it is only lately that their capabilities have been understood and acknowledged. Practice with these machines have been carried so far that offers of competitive trials of speed between them and horses on the race course have been made…”
I’m glad that they don’t make them that way any longer!
~The Traveler
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