Moveable cards animated: guest post by Larry Seidman

I came across Larry Seidman's superb animated site of moveable cards from the Biedermeier period when I was working on valentines, and am delighted that Larry has accepted my invitation to write a post about the site, which makes inspirational use of technology. The YouTube videos also give wonderful insights into the mechanisms of paper moveables and optical and tin mechanical toys.

All images are (C) Collection of Larry Seidman and are reproduced here with permission

"Instant Family" Pull tab Movable hand colored Biedermeier card ca 1820

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a gif is worth a thousand pictures! These animated gifs show the mechanisms behind the hand colored copper engravings of pull tab movable cards from the Biedermeier period 1815-1835. They were made in Europe primarily in Germany and France and England. Some are completely hand done in watercolor. Many were given out as greeting cards or the modern day equivalent of valentine cards. 

Dancing with my friend
Pull tab Biedermeier card ca1820 (C) Collection of Larry Seidman

These were the predecessors of the well known movable books by Nister and Meggendorfer.  Some of the mechanisms were very elaborate. There are scans of the reverse sides of the cards which show how the levers activate many simultaneous moving parts with the pull of one tab. This gives a behind the scenes look into the mind of the paper engineers from 200 years ago!

Churn that butter!
European hand colored engraving ca 1840s movable pull tab card

   














A gif is basically a file format that shows animation on the web. The technique employed is rather labor intensive but provides a nice resolution to the cards.  It gives a cleaner image than in a video.

Individual scans of the cards are taken sequentially by pulling the tab a little bit more each time.   The technique utilized is similar to the stop-motion of the old Wallace and Gromit cartoons. The scans are edited and sequenced  in Photoshop  and then uploaded into the tumblr blog as a gif file. 

Movable Biedermeier card Germany ca 1820.
“Die mutter zärtlichkeit ist dieser vogel sitte.
So wünsch ich einstens dich in deiner kinder mitte”.
A mother’s tenderness is this bird-sitting.
I wish you at least one child in your ‘nest’.

 I have collected these fragile cards for 25 years and have over 100 in my collection.  I especially like the unique and elaborate mechanisms that never show up in book form. It is a miracle they have survived! Many have been restored (by reattaching the broken threads) by Robin Collins, giving new life to these superb mechanisms. Both she and I will be speaking at the Movable Book Society conference this September in Philadelphia so please come. 

For those interested there are short movies of my collection on YouTube:

Moveable cards:

http://youtu.be/Pkt4ORX83g4 

Miniature moveable books parts 1 and 2:

http://youtu.be/SCC3b-zO-Ug

http://youtu.be/I5t-mHWQDvA

Modern miniature moveable artist books:
http://youtu.be/LdSUhO9Cljs

and mechanical tin and optical toys:

http://youtu.be/Mp-UPt-LggU

You can contact me direct by email: Drlar7@aol.com

Games People Play exhibition

A selection from Adrian Seville's collection of printed board games is on display at Haldon Forest Park, near Exeter, at the Centre for Contemporary Art and the Natural World. The exhibition (part of the Cultural Olympiad) is titled Games people play and  runs until September 30.

The Giochidelloca Website for Games based on the Game of Goose: Guest post by Prof Adrian Seville

We are privileged to have our first guest post, by Adrian Seville, whose joint website with Luigi Ciompi contains a wealth of scholarship about board games based on the Game of the Goose. 

The Giochi dell'Oca website established by Luigi Ciompi and Adrian Seville now contains over 1600 images of printed board games based on or allied to the Game of the Goose (Jeu de l’Oie, Gioco dell’Oca, etc). The database contains not only games from their collections but also games from other collections, both private and public. Images are accessible from the archivio (archive) page. They are of good quality and are free to download, though permission to publish them elsewhere is required. Detailed information about many of the games is also given. The storia page gives a list of publications that can be downloaded and there is comprehensive bibliographia page. The pdf Hints on how to use the site  is an invaluable introduction (in English) to searching.

(C) Dr Luigi Compi

Ephemera studies.org

The ephemera in this site, Ephemera studies.org curated by Saul Zalesch at Louisiana Tech University, Rushton, LA, are lesser-known items from his own collection, aimed at scholars and collectors. His aim is to provide 'more-nuanced pictures of American culture and life.' Many have been selected for their aesthetic value.  The collection is currently being donated to the Winterthur Library.

 Dr Zalesch posts selected images several times a week  The images can be browsed or viewed by categories: advertisement, almanach, book, booklet, card, catalog, illustration, magazine, and sheet music.  Each item is accompanied by a title, date and category and a lengthy and informative description under the heading of 'Why it's interesting.'  There are some 400 images on the site, all with commentaries.

This is a very interesting personal view of ephemera.  Comments to posts are invited.

www.ephemerastudies.org

Look and Learn: the collections of Peter Jackson, Valerie Jackson Harris and more

The collections of the late Peter Jackson and of Valerie Jackson Harris are among the very finest in private hands.  Peter Jackson collected ephemera relating to London: many of his items are not represented in any museum or library. Valerie, who trades as Quadrille and who is Chairman of The Ephemera Society, is a connoisseur of ephemera and collects only the finest, specialising in embossing, valentines, trade cards, dance and the unusual or exquisite.

Valerie is very aware that these are both museum-quality collections and that they deserve to be known and used by scholars and enthusiasts. Digitisation and the Look and Learn platform have enabled that to happen without compromising the condition and private nature of the collections. The results are a truly stunning resource, testament to Valerie's generosity of spirit and her wish to transform her late husband Peter's work and skill as a collector into a living resource for present scholars.  Work is still in progress to digitise and catalogue both collections, but there are already 19,919 images from The Peter Jackson London Collection and 629 from The Valerie Jackson Harris Collection with many thousands more to come. It is a serious and very exciting  resource for ephemerists and researchers.

Peter Jackson Collection  © 2005-2012 Look and Learn

Valerie Jackson Harris Collection  © 2005-2012 Look and Learn

I have to confess that I had never heard of the Look and Learn history picture library, which provides images for scholars and teachers but, quite apart from Valerie's and Peter's collections, it is a superb resource. Based on classic illustrated children's magazines, it has diversified to include 64,766 images from Bridgeman Education, 21,572 images from the Library of Congress and 2,161 images from IPC media.

The formula is simple. Anyone can browse free of charge.  Downloads (apart from the Library of Congress, which is free) cost £2 per image for personal or educational use.  A licence must be obtained before any usage.  There are also fees and licences for commercial use and items from the Original artwork collection may be ordered as cards (including e-Cards), posters, prints, etc.

The Peter Jackson Collection was also the subject of a beautiful and informative book, which he co-authored with Felix Barker: The pleasures of London (London, London Topographical Society, 2008).

GARD - The GAmes Research Database

GARD (the GAmes Research Database) is an invaluable resource, compiled by game collectors and experts who are aiming to create a comprehensive listing of board games and other old games in their own and other collections (both public and private).  The database can be browsed by maker and searched in various ways: examples, books, makers, gamenames (titles), adverts (in progress), registrations, and across a combination of these (including by date) in Scan tables. Thumbnails, which accompany nearly all the games, can be expanded by clicking the View button to the left of the table.This also reveals the full metadata.

(C) GARD

I had the pleasure of meeting the creators of GARD and other games and playing cards experts, who came to the Bodleian in 2010, viewed all the games in the John Johnson Collection and generously shared their expertise. They have added our holdings to GARD, with references to the exisitng digital images available through the Oxford Digital Library. Through the trademark and design register and copyright registrations (National Archives), they were usually able to assign dates to the games.


The site includes useful links and overviews of collections, both public and private.

The GARD site is very much work in progress and will eventually include articles on games, adverts for games and attempts to match rules to games without them (and vice versa).

There is a lot of very useful material in this site, achieved for the benefit of scholarship through painstaking research. Some of the site is restricted to members of GARD and others by invitation, but much is public and well worth exploring

Nancy Rosin's Victorian Treasury and the National Valentine Collectors Association

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy Rosin

Nancy Rosin is an indefatiguable valentine collector and expert.  Through her website: Nancy Rosin's Victorian Treasury: the valentine resource, she shares her knowledge and enthusiasm for the subject, notably through her knowledgeable articles.  

Her most recent article: Adding flight to the wings of Cupid: postal delivery of the valentine  is online through the American Stamp Dealer.


Nancy is also President of the National Valentine Collectors Association (which, in addition to online auctions distributes to its members informative Newsletters).  The National Valentine Collectors Association has a very active and informative Facebook page.

Nancy's interest in ephemera goes beyond the valentine: she is also Vice President of The Ephemera Society of America.

There is an interview with Nancy on the Ephemera blog (Typepad).