Ephemera:

Ephemera is a broad term used to describe items of paper that were created for use in a short time span and meant to be thrown away after one or two uses. Items generally put into the ephemera category of collecting would be sheet music, posters, stock certificates, post cards, cigarette cards, magazines, catalogs, and the like.
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Irish Cigarettes

This is very interesting to me. First of all I love the color and the graphics on the box. It actually is a box flattened out. Very small size, but then it only held 10 cigarettes. On the back in Madeline's handwriting is "Irish cigarettes, King". No idea what King means. I don't believe she ever smoked, but then again she was in her 50's when I met her. I'm sure she saved this because it reminded her of an event or a person. When I googled "Gold Flake cigarettes" I learned that this box is pre-1945. I also found a few glamorous advertisements of woman smoking these cigarettes. And I learned that they are the most popular brand today in India.

This is all so fascinating to me, learning about each of the hundreds of items that she saved. I could very well spend the rest of my life learning about it all.

2 comments:

  1. What is so funny is that Madeline was very proudly English. How a pack of Irish ciggies made it into the collection would be interesting to know.

    And a 2nd on WAP's comments. Thanks, so much. Beautiful work here.

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