We missed it – Nellie Bly edition…

September 20, 2024 by  
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No matter how hard our staff at Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers tries not to, inevitably we occasionally miss gems buried within the collectible newspapers we offer. Dozens of issues of the New York Tribune left our premises with undiscovered (unsigned) articles by Karl Marx. A real heartbreak was missing one of the first (1st?) published articles by a journalist with the initials S.C. Unfortunately, we were unable to get in touch with the recipient of the newspaper, but we sure hope they discovered this precious, early work from Mark Twain. Today we are aware that many of the issues of The Village Voice which pass through our hands have a good chance of containing an ad for one of the very first appearances of an iconic musician or band. As they say, “it is what it is”. What is it? One of special pleasures of the hobby: discovering unidentified treasures within the pages of old, rare, and historic newspapers.

We’ve mentioned this before, so why bring it up now? IT HAPPENED AGAIN!

Not too long ago a collector-friend mentioned they had an issue of The World (Pulitzer’s paper from New York) which contained a puzzle-game based on journalist Nellie Bly’s “Round the World” trip. The (New York) World followed her travels during her glorious excursion and printed the full-page puzzle soon after she returned home. The collector told us the date, and we immediately checked our database to see if we had a monthly volume of The World which spanned the date of the issue. We did. Next, we checked to see if our records revealed a previous sale for the issue? No! So, armed with great enthusiasm we headed off to the archives with anticipation. The volume was about 18 feet off the ground and buried under 5 other volumes (which is always a bit tricky when our feet are not firmly planted on the ground). Still within about 15 minutes from start to finish we were confronted by our worst-case scenario. The volume was present, but the issue was gone. It had very likely sold as a “birthday newspaper” (issues sold primarily to be used to give as gifts to recipients which highlight they day they were born). Bummer.

One may wonder how we could we have missed something so large… and so precious. Actually, it was as easy as 1, 2, 3 (or if you prefer, a, b, c):

  1. (a) We had no idea such an item existed, so we weren’t looking for it.
  2. (b) The sale probably took place prior to the ramp-up of the internet, so we didn’t have the capacity to make even a generalized search for content.
  3. (c) We would have been reluctant to page through the issue looking for special items since many newspapers from this era are rather brittle – and the puzzle-game was on an inside page.

Does this upset us? Not really. This aspect is one of the traits which make this collectible so rewarding.

Note: You can read more about Nellie Bly here and find a free downloadable high-resolution digital print of the puzzle here.

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Filed under: Newspaper Collecting Ideas, Noteworthy Issues, The 20th & 21st Centuries, The Collectible Community, The Hobby
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