Showing posts with label Flea Market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Flea Market. Show all posts

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Mystery Massbuch

I have been collecting ephemera for a very long time, & usually can work out what things are, but today I had a Fleam Find that puzzles & intrigues me. Does anyone have a clue what these notes might be about? They all seem to involve color & historical events. At first I thought it might be stamp descriptions, but then what are all the grain measurements about? (Or is there perhaps a currency abbreviated gr? I couldn't find one.)

If anyone has a clue I would be deeply grateful-- my curiosity is tormenting me!

Oh, by the way, the notebook is a small Massbuch, a Catholic calendar, though if there is a connection I can't make it out.

Edit: The mystery is solved! A Twitter friend, @norlik, figured out that this is in fact a list of stamps-- Polish stamps. The gr is neither grams nor grains, but Groszy, 1/100 złoty.
@norlik even found a link to one of the stamps mentioned, the Madame Curie commemorative.

Thank you so much, @norlik! I love the internet!

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Brain Medicine & Drawing Instruction

Despite temps nearing 100 & rain threatening, I had a splendid morning at the Fleam: I found some great old textbooks & ephemera for cheap, as well as a handsome Visible Man model with at least most of his dainty little parts intact.

These ads are both from Primary Education magazine, January 1923.

I imagine being forced to teach drawing does sometimes result in dreadful mental strain. That's probably why the arts are disappearing from our schools, right? So maybe we just need to bring back Horsford's.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Fleam Find

I'm so lucky that I live just down the street from the amazing Raleigh Flea Market. I can't resist the Fleam-- you never know what wonders (&/or weirdness) you'll find there. Today there was an especially nice book stall with many antiquarian delights, most at bargain prices.

This is a detail from the cover of my find of the day-- a 1855 volume, edited by one Dionysius Lardner, D.C.L.-- full of tidbits about everything from "The Brain of the Ourang-Outang" & "The Sagacity of Bears" to "Magnifying Glasses for Miniature Painters." Dozens of engravings to boot.

All for a fiver! Squee!