Documents encompass all manner of printed and handwritten forms, from deeds and birth certificates to licenses and passports. These pieces of paper may contain signatures, making them of interest to autograph collectors, but documents do more than capture John Hancocks—they are official records of the circumstances surrounding particular moments and events, often witnessed and documented, if you will, first hand.
For those fascinated by militaria, documents offer windows into armed conflicts via battle orders, maps showing troop movements, and even wartime letters home recounting an assault or counter attack. On the homefront, documents can reveal the health of a business, as in an itemized billhead listing goods ordered or sold. Contracts and promissory notes, whether handwritten or filled in on a form, can be used as primary source materials by historians and genealogists. As for stock and bond certificates, these documents may have represented the promise of wealth in the future, but today they are usually collected for less lucrative reasons like nostalgia or aesthetics.
Interviews & Articles
Your Worst Airport Security-Line Nightmare: You're Behind a Family of 66 on One Passport

Today’s guest blogger is Tom Topol, editor of www.passport-collector.com When it comes to ephemera, there seems to be an in… [more]
Best of the Web (“Hall of Fame”)
Ephemera Blog

Marty Weil's wide-ranging, in-depth blog on ephemera, including lots of great interviews with ephemera collectors. … [read review or visit site]
Ephemera Society of America

Great reference on ephemera... includes examples and descriptions of various ephemera categories, selected special … [read review or visit site]
If These Shirts Could Talk: The Tantalizing Tales Behind Used Clothes
Jockeying for Position: How Boxers and Briefs Got Into Men's Pants
Gloriously Grotesque 19th-Century Pipes
In the Hot Seat: Is Your Antique Windsor a Fake?
Love at First Kite: How Pizza and Pente Led to One Oklahoman's High-Flying Obsession
Blood, Sweat, and Steel: My Afternoon with the Ace of Swords
'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong
Say Ahhh: An Oral Surgeon's Quest to Reimagine the Garage-Band Guitar
Forget TV Pickers, Meet the Real Mavericks of the Antiques World
Coveting The Craziest Cat-People Collectibles

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