Ephemera
is transitory written and printed matter, not intended to
be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek,
meaning things lasting no more than a day. Some collectible
ephemera are advertising trade cards, airsickness bags,
baseball cards, bookmarks, cigarette cards, greeting cards,
letters, photographs, postcards, posters, stock certificates,
tickets, and e-zines.
The earliest collectibles were included
as incentives with other products, such as cigarette cards
in packs of cigarettes. Popular items developed a secondary
market and sometimes became the subject of collectible crazes.
Eventually many collectible items came to be sold separately,
instead of being used as marketing tools to increase the
appeal of other products. To encourage collecting, manufacturers
often create an entire series of a given collectible, with
each item differentiated in some fashion. Examples include
sports cards depicting individual players, or different
designs of Beanie Baby. Enthusiasts will often try to assemble
a complete set of the available variations.
The early versions of a product, manufactured
in smaller quantities before its popularity as a collectible
developed, sometimes command exorbitant premiums on the
secondary market. In a mature market, collectibles rarely
prove to be a spectacular investment. Decks of personality
identification playing cards from the war in Iraq are a
recent example. In library and information science, the
term ephemera also describes the class of published single-sheet
or single page documents which are meant to be thrown away
after one use. This classification excludes simple letters
and photographs with no printing on them, which are considered
manuscripts or typescripts.
Large academic and national libraries and
museums may collect, organize, and preserve ephemera as
history. Ephemera is a noun, the plural neuter of ephemeron
and ephemeros, Greek and New Latin for epi = on and hemera
= day with the ancient sense extending to the mayfly and
other short lived insects and flowers and for something
which lasts a day or a short period of time. The earliest
collectibles were included as incentives with other products,
such as cigarette cards in packs of cigarettes.
Popular items developed a secondary market
and sometimes became the subject of collectible crazes.
Eventually many collectible items came to be sold separately,
instead of being used as marketing tools to increase the
appeal of other products. To encourage collecting, manufacturers
often create an entire series of a given collectible, with
each item differentiated in some fashion. Examples include
sports cards depicting individual players, or different
designs of Beanie Babies. Enthusiasts will often try to
assemble a complete set of the available variations. The
early versions of a product, manufactured in smaller quantities
before its popularity as a collectible developed, sometimes
command exorbitant premiums on the secondary market.
In a mature market, collectibles rarely
prove to be a spectacular investment.Occasionally, a series
of circumstances will take place that result in an item
from a collectible series becoming exceptionally valuable.
These objects are referred to as collector’s items
due to their rarity, and these objects have occasionally
been valuable enough to be sold for substantial amounts
of money. Some even later destroy remainders of such items
to cause forced scarcity.
Scrapbook
Storage
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