By Maribeth Keane, Collectorsweekly.com

I was looking around our Hall of Fame today, which showcases some of the best collector sites on the web. There are many great sites, but here’s a few personal favorites I thought I’d mention:

Let’s start with one of my all time favorites, Circusmuseum.nl. I love the antique feel of the prints, I can tell they date as far back as the early 1900s. The site is pretty simple but it’s the colorful, quirky, and unusual posters I can’t get enough of. From bears riding bicycles to a two headed cow, they get more interesting as I click from page to page. You can also check out some other great poster sites on our vintage posters pages.

As a daily bike rider, I can’t leave out The Wheelmen, a site which promotes the use and restoration of early American cycles from 1918 or earlier. The antique photographs page includes images of high wheels, pneumatics, and other bicycle-related photographs. There are also stories of extreme journeys across the country, as well as cigar box labels, tournament ribbons, and bicycle sheet music covers.

For a great mix of humor and vintage items, I like Lileks… James Lileks blunt and sarcastic commentary is hilarious and definitely keeps me clicking. But he also has page after page of rare and random Americana memorabilia and mid 19th century ephemera, including bad comics, rare ads, fashion catalogs, diner and motel postcards, matchbooks, and more. Also, check out his other project, The Engraveyard, home to some very strange money from around the world.

Vintage fashion is a weakness of mine, especially from the 1920s to 1960s. Miss Vintage has put together an amazing site focusing on the women who were icons of that era, including Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, Grace Kelly, Marlene Deitrich and more. I especially like the “snapshots” feature which contains candid and natural photos of women, fashion, and their daily lives. Find more fashion icons and threads on our fashion pages.

The kid in me can’t fail to mention the Mr. Potato Head site. Yes, it’s just a vegetable with a removable and rearrangeable face. But when you browse this site you’ll be reminded that MPH was much, much more – a cultural phenom with his own clothing, television appearances, costumes, music, books, and even statues.

Oft Unseen features unusual and interesting artifacts from secret fraternal initiations. The site offers symbols, regalia, and ritual and initiation-related items from the Freemasons and other organizations. I’m drawn to the mystery of this site. Although small, its also well organized.

I never had a piggy bank growing up, but Piggy Banks and Famous Potteries makes me wish I did. The site showcases British and European banks from potteries such as: Arthur Wood, Szeiler & Moorland, Ellgreave, Wade, Sadler, Masons, Goebel & Hummel, and more. They’re all so cute and colorful. Each has it’s own individual expression, and some even have little piglets.

Dieter’s Flickr photoset of airline spoons is just…amazing. He’s collected over 1,000 spoons from American, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Northwest, Maxjet, Balkan, Air Holland, Mexicana, and hundreds more airlines. I wonder what it’s like to be an airplane spoon designer!

Radio Guy has cooked up an interesting site full of oddball scientific equipment. And I mean unusual items: e.g. a Table Nebulizer, Oden Resonator, German Tin Robot Mask, and other weird tools, toys, and models. I can’t help but wonder what they could possibly be used for…

If you’re into the environment and preventing wildfires, check out the vintage Smokey the Bear ads and memorabilia at Smokey’s Vault. From the story of Smokey and how he got his name, to a museum that spans the decades from the 1940s to the present, you can see the evolution of environmentally-oriented poster design.

I can’t get enough of the antique cameras that empowered some of the greatest photographers in history. Rob Niederman site, Antique and 19th Century Cameras, contains oldies like the Stereo Brownie, Horseman Eclipse cameras, the Star View Camera, Scovill Waterbury View, No. 4 Folding Kodaks, Bell’s Straight Working Panorama Camera, and many more that I’d love to make pictures with.

The Bottle Cap Index is a must see for bottle cap enthusiasts, featuring over 500,000 caps from Afghanistan, Chile, Egypt, France, El Salvador, India, Jamaica, Switzerland and dozens more countries. I could spend hours on this site looking at all the different logos and icons, ranging from Coca-Cola to Heineken and many local brands. Check out other bottle-related collections on our antique bottles page.

I’ve recently gotten into comics and I’ve always been a pin collector, so Mark Lansdown’s Comic Character Pin site is perfect for my list. The collection ranges from 1890 to 1950 and features characters like: Betty Boop, Buster Brown, Felix the Cat, Andy Gump, Yellow Kid, Tom and Jerry, Orphan Annie, and hundreds more. Also, check out our comics and pinbacks pages for related collections and references.

Feeding America is an amazing archive of different cookbooks from the late 1700s to early 1900s. I love good food, so this site definitely caught my attention. Its a great look inside the history of the cookbook from healthy cooking, housekeeping tips, bar tending manuals, to breads, cakes, and beverages (the site provides full scans of each book). There’s also a great collection of cooking utensils and kitchenware.

I never use matches, but Match World has opened my eyes to them, because the art on these matchbooks is so bold and interesting. This virtual museum displays artwork from categories like nature, animals, people, plants, insects, birds, cars, religion, pictographs and tools. Also, check out our Tobacciana page for other related items like lights, tins, cigar bands, and even more matchbook sites.

Found in Mom’s Basement is fun and colorful. A blog dedicated to vintage advertising from the 20th century, I enjoy seeing how the ads have evolved (or not!) from year to year. The site, in blog format, is categorized by decade as well as by theme (e.g. ‘vintage advertising for correspondence courses’).

Kerouac Book Covers! It might sound dorky, but I can’t read enough Jack Kerouac. This collection of all his book covers for On the Road from Spanish to German to Italian editions is great… I love seeing the different artwork. There are also links to two of my other favorite authors, William S. Burroughs and Neal Cassady.

I’m a classic monster and horror lover year round. The Gallery of Monster Toys showcases some of my favorite monsters like: Frankenstein, Wolf-man, Dracula, and Godzilla and even some I never knew about. The site is organized into ‘galleries’ (scary galleries), one each for the 1960s, the 70s, the 80s and the 90s.

Thats all for now… for more great sites check out our complete Hall of Fame.

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