My Paper Collectibles

📜 The ephemera I collect and how I display them.

On Collecting Ephemera

Ephemera are items that are typically disposed of after one-time or short term use¹. I have long admired collections of these items, probably because I grew up around them. My dad collects postage stamps. My grandfather saved wine labels he liked and affixed each one to the tiles on the walls of his home’s kitchen.

My grandfather’s wine label collection, affixed to individual tiles in my grandparents’ home.

A family friend has a giant vase in their bathroom filled to the brim with hotel soaps from their travels. I recently saw a photo of a journal spread filled with different tea bag labels (how many cups of tea²)! Matchbook collecting, from hotels, restaurants, and bars has become quite popular again. I love fruit sticker collections, reflecting delicious produce consumed. I once saw a video of a carefully organized bread tag collection, which has its own taxonomy³, (fascinating). Collections of bottle caps, wine corks, or postage stamps, are not trash, but artifacts from our personal histories — each item representing a refreshing drink on a hot afternoon, a bottle of wine shared with friends, or a letter received from a loved one.

In a recent post, I went over a number of ways I save little paper mementos inside my Travel Journal (aka Junk Journal), but I also save little paper souvenirs outside of my notebooks. These are my paper collectibles and how I display them in my home.

A look inside my postcard album. (These four are from Dante.)

Restaurant Postcards

One of my favorite restaurant marketing trends, the Restaurant Postcard is usually presented with the check, fastened with a paperclip as a guest check holder. I used to mail them to family and friends, but some have such beautiful designs that I started saving them for myself as keepsakes! My favorite postcards have illustrations by local artists, like the seasonal postcards from Dante, or the ones I picked up in New Orleans. Unlike restaurant matchbooks⁴, these mementos are completely free, and make a lovely souvenir for special meals.

Standard postcards are 4x6 inches, the same as a standard photo, so photo albums make the perfect storage system for restaurant postcards. I try to label each postcard with the date and who I shared the meal with as I add them, and the album lives on my coffee table as a kind of DIY coffee table book. Guests can flip through and see where I’ve eaten via the epistolary collection. Not every restaurant has a postcard, in fact, most don’t, so each time I receive one feels like finding a prize in a cereal box!

Part of my bookmark collection.

Bookmarks

Like restaurant postcards, bookmarks are often dispensed for free (with purchase) at bookstores as marketing materials. Alternately, the purchase of a bookmark is a great low-cost souvenir from museums, stationery shops, or artists. I love to hunt for fresh bookmarks to add to my collection, or be surprised upon receiving a free one while checking out at a store.

Where my bookmark collection lives.

Some of my bookmark collection is on display in a bowl in my living room, should a reader on the couch need to mark their place, but my favorites stay close to me on my nightstand, along with what I’m currently reading + my reading queue. My bookmarks are on a constant rotation so that they all feel loved.

Some of the biz card collection.

Business Cards

Unique, carefully designed business cards bring me such joy. Most of the business cards in my collection are from restaurants, as they tend to be the most creative. There can be so much variety in the design of a business card: letterpress, interesting shapes, textures, unexpected color palettes, metallics, illustrations, good logos, bold design choices, typography - are all very inspiring to a stationery lover. Thumbing through my pile of business cards is one of the ways I unblock myself when I’m in a creative rut.

Me stumbling upon a cool new business card. (From American Psycho (2000))

I pick up many business cards on my travels, not only because they’re attractive, but because I genuinely want to remember or recommend the restaurant or shop. At the end of my trip, I’ll comb through my paper ephemera, and add the new business cards to my collection, which currently lives in a basket on my bookshelf. I love that my collection reflects the places I’ve been and the businesses I’ve supported. I am currently searching for a way to display my business cards in a more prominent and organized manner, perhaps in a vintage rolodex? I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled in thrift shops!

1. Whoever invented the phrase “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure” probably saw someone’s candy wrapper collection

2. I am thinking about the lyrics to Seasons of Love from Rent.

3. Bread tags = occlupanids! Here is the subreddit.

4. Some locales charge a nominal fee when you request a matchbook.