A couple of weekends ago, we went to The Ephemera Fair in Birmingham at the National Motorcycle Museum. I don’t know how I came across something of this nature was going down. Probably one of my useless six hour interweb surfing sessions earlier this year. Which as it goes, didn’t turn out to be useless, because The Ephemera Fair was like being in old-smelly-paper heaven. It was crammed full to the door (besides a large proportion of silver surfers) of vintage books, postcards, tickets, magazines, newspapers. You name it. Anything recording something on paper pre-1980, could probably be found here. Beyond the musty aroma wafting through the air, I came across some really quite lovely things. And I purchased them. The thought did cross my mind at the time that I was literally paying for an old pointless bit of paper. However, when emotion gets in the way, and your eyes become the size of traffic lights caused by having the aesthetic-appreciation part of your brain tickled, that doesn’t matter. I fell in love.
Magazine insert advertising ’Lux Soap Powder’. Colour lithograph by artist Will Owen (1869 – 1957) – Circa 1915 (Source – The Bridgeman Art Library)
