Last updated: 2026-03-27

Ephemera

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Vintage Carte de Visite

Carte de Visite

I had found twelve 4"x2-1/2" carte de visite, in some postcards that I inherited from my grandmother. Upon researching them, because they had 2- and 3-cent US Internal Revenue stamps on the reverse, I found that they were made during the period of our Civil War.

The link above will bring you to some webpages displaying the front and reverse of them, and there will also be links where you can purchase a reproduction color print them, as they are way beyond copyright protection.

The photography studios represented by this small collection include: Bryant (Charlestown, MA), Joseph W. Warren (Fall River, MA), T.R. Burnham (Boston, MA), Knowles & Hillman (New Bedford, MA), H.F. Norton & Bro. (Fall River, MA), G.W. Venner (Charlestown, MA), Walker at Adam's Gallery (Worcester, MA) and S & S. Brown (Providence, RI)

Vintage Advertising Cards

Vintage Advertising Cards

Most of the advertising cards in my collection are from the end of the Victorian era of about 1900. Those were the simple days, before a company had to learn how to advertise with Google, long before the advent of the Google Adwords Professional, but they did have direct mail advertising. That type of advertising is what these advertising cards was all about.

The advertising cards that are on this set of webpages include Quaker Ranges, Van Houten's Cocoa, Standard Sewing Machines, and Singer Sewing Machines, among others.

Vintage Stock Certificates

Vintage Stock Certificates

At the moment, the only stock certificate that I have online is a rare 1866 capital stock certificate for the National Warren Bank of Warren, Rhode Island. It is offered for sale, as I need to thin down my collection and this one is the most valuable one I own.

Coming Soon - The Henry Howland Letters

Henry Howland was the pen name for James A. Decker. The Henry Howland Letters deal with the problems and potentials of the mail-order stamp dealer. I have acquired a number of Henry Howland Letters, when I was gifted the remaining reference content of the Merrimac Valley Stamp Company, from the passed owner's family.

It is very interesting reading. Further provoking when I performed a Google search to see if there was any more information on the Henry Howland Letters and found a sort of soap opera of sorts, which will be expanded upon on the Howland Letters webpage in the near future. Interestingly, I actually found that I own a book written by James A. Decker, Magnificent Decision, published in 1963 by the Unity School of Christianity, Lee's Summit, Missouri.

This webpage last updated on 2026-03-27