Tag: Found Objects

Depression-era Broadside

Just found this Depression-era, anti-New Deal broadside/handbill entitled “Women of America, Wake Up!” in the “Handy Edition” of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition that I’m slowly restoring.


and larger here.

It was produced by the Women’s Rebellion, Suffern New York, Rockland County, Sarah Oliver Hulswit (Chairman).

“Pump-priming” referred to Roosevelt’s New Deal programs “including social security, workman’s comp, the Writers Project, and the like…plus extensive programs of public works (Hoover Dam; Grand Coulee Dam; the Tennessee Valley Authority, Lone Star Lake Dam in Douglas County, Kansas, etc)” (adapted from here)

Alright I was backlogged but that’s it for today.

1948 Chinese Opera Theatre Ticket

I just found a January 25, 1948 ticket to the Canton theatre (75-85 East Broadway, New York) used as a bookmark.

According to theater buff Damien Farley at CinemaTreasures.org the Canton:

Opened as a home to both Yiddish vaudeville and motion pictures in 1911, the Florence Theatre, the exact address of which was 75-85 East Broadway, ended its existence as the Sun Sing in 1993.

By 1942, the theatre had been rechristened the New Canton Theatre and featured performances of Chinese opera and variety acts. In 1950, the facility was again re-dubbed, this time as the Sun Sing Theatre, and took to exhibiting Chinese language films, sometimes with English subtitles.

In 1960, the theatre was scheduled for demolition when faced with the addition of an upper deck to the Manhattan Bridge far above. However, city engineers were able to save the theatre and the adjoining retail space, through the use of innovative bridge supports which only caused the theatre’s seat count to be reduced, this time to 676.

In 1972, the theatre began to feature a mixed program of film and stage performances. It finally closed in 1993.

Here’s an image from the theater’s later days. I love the way it’s nestled under the bridge.


I can’t find a rundown of what might have been playing on that particular evening in 1948, but here’s a Chinese Opera mask, just cause it’s cool.

Bosun’s Shelf

Found this plan for a bosun’s shelf layed into a Popular Science collection of Wood Carving and Whittling projects.

full plan here.

Fairly simple. And an attractive way to display nautical-themed tchotchkes.

Also includes a brief plan for making a broken golf club into a pen-stand or a lamp.

More Wonderful/Horrible Things

The new issue of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet (the ‘zine arm of Gavin Grant and Kelly Link’s bounteous Small Beer Press) contains an essay from me entitled “11 Wonderful/Horrible Things Found While Bookscouting”.

It was great fun picking and sequencing the list but, since a good rock album can only have 11 songs, there were some outtakes. Here are the bonus tracks.

12. A half-melted Barbie doll wrapped in a bed sheet.

13. An VF/NM copy of Robert Heinlein’s 6th Column. Signed and inscribed in the year of publication.

14. A three-ring binder of gay-porn obsessively indexed by endownment and ethnicity.

15. A 5-foot-square, outsider-architect blueprint of a Home for Elderly Women. Designed on a wagon wheel model, each spoke of the building was separated by a garden filled with flora and fauna from diverse climates. Each window on the plan was labeled with a peculiar combination of design styles (“Afgahni/Chinese” for instance) and the plan was very specific about bunk-beds for the fragile tennants.

16. A brown paper bag containing a homemade, 8mm sex movie, together with a mimeo’d copy of letter to a local judge offering this film as definitive proof that the letter-writer’s “reproductive reservoir was damaged while lifting an empty(?) box at his dish-washing job. He goes on to state that he “wants a nice little lawsuit with no one getting hurt or catching any diseases.”

Detective Book Club

Just found this blow-in card for the Detective Book Club used as a bookmark in a paperback mystery:


While book club edition are generally the bane of the rare book dealer, If I could send in this card and receive cool, well-designed books like the ones pictured, I would do it in a second.

The Hardcase Crime subscription plan scratches the itch to some extent.

Wistful Ohio Girl

Just found this photo in a 1923 South Webster, Ohio High School Yearbook:


Nice bob, elaborately-laced patent leather shoes, and I like the way the tree silhouette frames her. Looks like she’s sitting on the roof of the school. I’m going to return this one to the yearbook. I normally keep old photos for my ephemera wall (especially of wistful looking, long deceased women…yeah…I don’t know) but I don’t want to disturb the history.

Found in a Book

A few new items for the ephemera wall.

Found this in Volume 12 of the Collected Marx and Engels:

Who knew Uncle Joe had such healthy and happy daughters? RRRRRrrrrrrr

And this one in an old diary:

Nice spats! Wish I could pull those off. What kind of deal do you think they’re sealing? Either the car was just sold, or they whacked a guy in the back seat.

Ephemera Wall: Not Work Safe (If you look reeeal close)

Baseball cards, love notes, pressed flowers, indecent photographs–and sometimes cash–have all drifted to me from the pages of old books. If you’re a book buyer you should always “fan” (either flip through with the thumb, or gently shake out) a book you’re considering for purchase before you put it down.

Every used bookstore I’ve worked in (or heard of) has a wall full of these curious treasures. Here’s mine:

Still on my first layer but it’s coming along. I will post new items as they find me. I’d love to see other people’s walls or hear stories about peculiar finds.