Ephemera

[AMERICANA - 19th CENTURY EPHEMERA] AMERICAN COW MILKER MACHINE POSTER, ORIGINAL. Buffalo, NY: Express Printing Company for the American Cow Milking Machine Co. [n.d. ca. 1865]. 42 x 26 3/4 inches. Woodblock printing: Boldest typeface measures 10 inches tall. L. O. Colvin's "American Cow Milker" was patented in 1860 as the first use of teat cups with a vacuum. The milker was used in England, but the constant vacuum pressure caused problems with the cows' teats. He sold the patent in England for about $5,000, after selling over 1,500 machines. He continued to make improvements and was more successful in America where this undated broadside was published. "Triumphant Success | The Most Important and Valuable Invention of the 19th Century" proclaims the headline; the company is seeking business men to invest/sell the machines; the farmer is being courted. "A sure cure for aching hands & kicking cows." Several archival tape repairs to reverse with no loss of text. Heavy newsprint stock, printed in black.… Read more

Hollywood , Cal .: James Abbe, 1922. Photographic Image. Illus. by James Abbe. Fine. No Binding. Autographed. 1924c. This vintage black & white photo by the Hollywood photographer James Abbe (1883 - 1973) is of Rudolph Valentino ( 1895 - 1926 ) . This personalized vintage photo of Valentino sitting on a couch with a book on his lap is a scarce image of this Silent Movie Star in relaxed full view shot ( scarce in pose and signed). The photo is now matted and framed . The autograph is to a friend ( **** to one of the sweetest girls I know, Rudy ). Signed photos of Valentino are extremely rare and photos by this photographer are also scarce to the market . Over all framed size : 17.5" x 15.5" . Size: 8 x 10 Photo Matted.

New York, 1983–1987. Contents uniformly in near fine to fine condition.. Collection of 120 flyers and posters from New York’s hottest and most inventive nightclub, Area, during the mid-1980s. Although it was a disco, Area was a purely visual, happenings-based venue, where New York's art, music, design, fashion, and literary worlds collided; Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, or Jean-Michel Basquiat might be brushing up against Michael Forbes, David Byrne, or Georgio Armani, and Stephen Saban would be there to remind them what happened afterwards in his Details magazine column. Unlike other downtown clubs that focused on music or dancing, Area was driven by art and the scene that it engendered, through its theme nights, elaborate installations, and inventive flyers that seemed to embody Warhol's concept of business art. This archive includes Area's famously unconventional invitations, posters, articles, booklets, and other ephemera from the nightclub's short-lived, yet significant, four-year history.… Read more

Paris: Fernand Hazan, 1948. Soft cover. Near Fine. 4.5" x 7" 4th volume in the Bibliotheque Aldine des Arts Series. In custom graphic slipcase with red spine label, with elegant purple ribbon. In glassine wrapper. Signed by Henri Matisse on the title page to 'a Monsieur Lionel Aucoin.' [12] p.p., plus 20 colour illustrations. Text in French. The book is enclosed in a stamped and typewritten envelope from Matisse at his apartment at 132 Montparnasse Paris, 52, France to collector Mr. Lionel Aucoin at 49 Chestnut Street in Spencer, Massachusetts with French stamps. Light rubbing to spine, covers. Small tears to edges of glassine wrapper Covers slightly yellowed but Interior clean. Envelope slightly browned, bruised at edges, but otherwise near fine.

1969. Loose Leaf. Very Good. Signed. 1969-1971. An extensive collection of material relevant to the radio show 'Summer Raptures of Ray Bradbury,' which aired April 1971 on CBM Radio 940, Montreal. The show featured adaptations of Bradbury's works and interviews with Bradbury by Canadian broadcaster Don Bell. The archive includes nine typed and signed letters from Bradbury to Bell, scripts of the adaptations, a cassette tape of the radio show, Bradbury's recipe for dandelion wine, and other related ephemera. A rare and unique collection. Photographs available upon request.

112+[1 ad] pages with diagrams and errata laid in. Square folio (12 1/4" x 10 1/4") bound in original publisher's wrappers in original onionskin jacket with a handwritten letter signed by Marcel Duchamp housed in a handcrafted archival enclosure by Octavaye. (Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana: 2273) First edition.
Letter by Marcel Duchamp to Richard Hulbeck 25 October 1947. Reads as follows: Dear Hulbeck, The pictures are not back and I am afraid won't be back for some months. Schweizer, the representative there is in France and is coming back in a few weeks or days. He will have exact information about the return of the shipment. Don't worry and I will call you up some day soon. Affectueusement Marcel.
Richard Hulsenbeck (1892-1972) was a German writer, poet and psychoanalyst. In 1920 he was editor of the Dada Almanach and wrote Dada siegt-Eine Bilanz des Dadaismus. After emigration to USA in 1923 he changed his name to Hulbeck.Curiosity has impelled the authors to elucidate a question which… Read more

Manuscript leaves numbered 38 through 255, plus 2 leaves of introduction. Folio (12 1/2" x 8 1/2") bound in later quarter calf over green marbled boards.The first page is captioned "Títulos y sucesiones de la casa llamada de Santa Inés, situada a la entrada de la ciudad de Tlalpan," or "Title deeds and inheritances of the house named after Santa Inés, situated at the entrance of the city of Tlalpan." The volume contains numerous documents which trace the succession of owners, sellers, and heirs of a house and orchard in San Agustín de las Cuevas, a town in colonial Coyoacán. It later came under the jurisdiction of Tlalpan in the national period, where it remains today. An introduction summarizes its contents; followed by a bill of the sale of the house by the bachiller Fr. Ventura de Medina y Picaso to Diego Bravo de Monera in 1688. Medina had dubbed the house Casa Santa Inés, a name that stuck. After several other buyers and heirs, the volume ends with a deed from 1839. The documents… Read more

"Pulcinoelefante" is an Italian publishing house founded by Alberto Casiraghi (or Casiraghy).
The books are hand printed using movable types on the high-quality Hahnemühle paper produced in Germany. Annually "Pulcinoelefante" publishes hundreds of small plaquettes formed by a text (aphorism or short poem), accompanied by small engravings or original drawings made by artists. Each edition is published in a very small number of copies hors de commerce.
"[…] Piegata dal vento della vita, sub specie mutationis, l'opera di Alda Merini, in un flusso inarginato, si muove dalla narrativa alla poesia, dall'eros al mistico, dall'informe alla forma, dal terrestre al celeste, dal vissuto al sognato.
E' significativo notare il profondo legame di Alda Merini con le edizioni Pulcinoelefante di Alberto Casiraghy (edizioni veloci, stampate in giornata). Si attua una produzione sconfinata di Alda Merini, dove si riconferma un'intuizione consequenziale: una sorta di frase infinita nella temporalità, nella durata… Read more

Paris: Saussine, 1865. Magnetic fortune telling board game, 21cm x 26cm. Constructed of painted wood and cardboard, significant wear, most notably to corners and extremities, the lid consists of the decorated top panel but has lost three of the four strengthening "lips" that would have firmly attached it to the base, although as a whole it is appreciably solid. A self-contained game in the form of a box with a painted glass and wood top with applied chromolithograph decoration, the magnetic blue bird moves beneath the window when a card and bone spinner with a metallic element is spun above it. The spinner has various fortune subjects written on it in French to "ask" the blue bird about. Once the bird stops spinning, its beak will be pointed at one of eight small circular lidded boxes affixed to the game surface (some of these are a trifle worn to the decorative paper covers, but still bright and attractive). Once opened, the boxes contain tiny circular handwritten paper "fortunes" which can be… Read more

Various Places: Various Ephemera. Fine. Unbound. Various. A remarkable collection amassed by a single collector from the 1940s-1970s whose original inventory sheet (included) lists 39,744 labels from 49 countries spanning the globe. The countries with the highest counts include Belgium, 8000+, France, 5100+, Spain, 4400+, and Switzerland, 3500+. The collector sent letters requesting their unused labels to wineries, breweries and distilleries. Consequently, almost all are unused and most are stored in the original contemporary return envelopes, with a count and sometimes a country on the outside for each envelope. A good number of duplicates and variants noted. Total inventory numbers not verified, although a good representative sampling of envelope counts confirms the accuracy of the count. Various sizes of labels, with complete bottle sets noted. Almost all are in Fine condition, with some creases and light wear from storage. The entire collection completely fills three bankers boxes. Provenance:… Read more

No publisher. Autograph manuscript signed; 4to; 16 pages. In this essay Harold Laski discusses the economic future of Palestine and of the Jews immigrating there following World War II. Laski was one of the most influential public intellectuals of the 20th century, a prolific author, professor at the London School of Economics, and leading advisor to the post war Labour government. Though normally regarded as a political theorist, Laski frequently wrote on the problems of international politics. Son of a Jewish cotton merchant in Manchester, he renounced his faith as a young man, but he developed close ties with leading Jewish figures on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Paris Peace Conference, following the Great War, Laski advised Felix Frankfurter who was in attendance as an observer for American Zionist interests. Frankfurter, with T.E. Lawrence, convinced Emir Faisal to sign the Faisal-Weizmann Agreement to create a workable co-existence between Palestine's Arab and Jewish populations as… Read more

No Publisher. Four autograph letters signed written whilst British Ambassador to Germany, to Lord Noel-Buxton, February to October 1938, 8 pages, quarto and octavo, annotated in pencil by the recipient. On 13 February 1938 Henderson puts forward his hopes for averting war ("...the Great War was fought not to increase British territory overseas but to preserve what we already had & to end wars in future. The Versailles Conference missed the point, but it is not too late to uproot the seeds of future war which Versailles sowed..."), on 7 April, giving a detailed exposition of a possible solution to the Czechoslovakian crisis, and, in October, registering his reaction to Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland ("...It has all made me feel rather sick. it c'ld have been so easily avoided. But perhaps Providence preferred the clean cut: & certainly it sh'ld save further crises in the future. Czechoslovakia was as a house built upon the sands & it c'ld never have stood ag'st the rising tide of… Read more

Nashville, Tennessee: Various, 1960. Scrapbook. Very Good. Pictorial Printed Wrappers. An important and substantial archive of material consisting of the Country Music Fan Club collection of Opal May Hardyman, superfan and President of the Carl Butler and Pearl Fan Club, which provides a comprehensive view of the dawn of the Country Music Fan Club era. While the Loretta Lynn Fan Club, organized in 1963 by the Johnson sisters, Loudilla, Loretta and Kay Johnson, is widely recognized as the first CM Fan Club, the Carl Butler and Pearl club was organized in November of 1962, and with the publication of the Butler Bulletin in February of 1963, it may actually hold that distinction. Female fans have been a driving force behind the popularity of country music since its inception.Their unwavering devotion and loyalty have played a crucial role in shaping the genre's cultural significance. The 1960s witnessed a surge in the formation of country music fan clubs, often spearheaded by women who were… Read more

4° (mm 204x144); cc. (2). Stemma mediceo in silografia al frontespizio, un capolettera ornato. Brossura posteriore in carta decorata. Buon esemplare, con i margini rinforzati. Conservato in una moderna custodia in tela.
Very rare ephemeral plaquette with a succinct description of the 'Apparatuses' made in Florence for the arrival of Christina of Lorraine (Bar-le-Duc, 1565 – Firenze, 1636), wife of Ferdinando I de' Medici. Cristina married the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1588, although she did not go to Florence until 1589, when grandiose decorations were created throughout the city, in the creation of which the best artists active in the city participated.The sumptuous and well-documented wedding festivities were designed to impress the royal houses of Europe: outdoor events for the public, as well as banquets and balls, comedies and musical interludes - which greatly influenced theatrical practices in European courts throughout the 17th century - and a mock sea battle in the flooded courtyard of… Read more

New York: Walt Disney Enterprises/ Published Monthly by Hal Horne, Inc. , 1935. Magazine. Good. Self Wrappers. 1st Edition. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. Volume 1, No. 2, the first issue of Mickey Mouse Magazine in this magazine size format measuring 8 1/2' x 11 1/2", priced at 10 cents and featuring "Cowboy Mickey" twirling a lasso. Vol. 1 No.1 was the first newsstand issue, published by Hal Horne in June of 1935 as an oversized quarterly (13" x 10") and priced at 25 cents. Good, the front cover detached, 1" chip bottom corner, small triangular chip at spine, 2" closed tear bottom edge, with 3 smaller closed tears, corner creases. Interior clean, unmarked and unblemished. 41 pages, featuring early Disney comics and stories, along with puzzles, art and activities and a $5,000 Contest. Goofy presents his own variations on famous nursery rhymes. Horace, Clarabelle, Mickey and Goofy pose for a photo. Plus a connect-the-dots featuring Hollywood legend George… Read more