On Paper Ephemera
Estate sales in New York City and the paper treasures that lie within
Traveling to an Estate Sale
For the unfamiliar, an estate sale is when an entire estate is opened up and everything inside is for sale, a step sometimes taken when preparing a home (or, occasionally, retail space) to be sold. By far the best resource for keeping tabs on estate sales is EstateSales.net. Many do happen in New York City, but unlike most other sales events here—like pop-up shops or sample sales—estate sales are typically deep in the outer boroughs, and I wouldn’t in good faith recommend one to a tourist.
Estate sales are also a little different here in that the estate is frequently an apartment, not a single family home. Moreover, New York City is the only major city in the US where most residents don’t own a car. I’m among the majority here, and I can always get there via public transit, but it’s often either an $80 round-trip cab ride or a 90-minute assessment of my mastery of New York Public Transit involving multiple transfers between subway(s) and bus(es), along with at least several blocks of walking.
You can understand why, by the time I get there, I am determined to come home with something. There’s a specific item—or rather a class of items—that I’m most commonly looking for: paper ephemera. Ephemera (pronounced eff-EM-uh-ruh) refer to things only meant to be around for a short time: tickets, letters, photos, brochures, cards, and so on. Often we throw them away, and thank goodness for the planet, many of these once-paper ephemera are now digital. In many of the estate sales I’ve been to, previous owners have squirreled them away in folders, binders, boxes, and drawers, passed down until there’s no one left for it to have meaning to.
Hunting for Treasures
When I travel to an estate sale, I seek out these folders, binders, boxes, and drawers and gather papers somewhat indiscriminately, keeping an eye out for anything especially old or unusual. I bring them to the person managing the pricing. I’ve felt embarrassed before when the seller was the person who had previously lived in the home and—understandably—didn’t want to sell sensitive documents like letters or photographs. When I go to a sale now, I am more intentional about what I buy. I want to understand whom I am buying from, often engaging with them and—in one unusual occasion—sharing a meal with them. I want to bring home a historical excavation, not a scandal.
Getting home then turns into a meticulous “unboxing.” I sort through every scrap of paper. Plenty of them, as you might expect, are simply trash and are discarded or recycled right away. Yet there are always surprises. Every time, I unearth objects with real historical value, and it’s fascinating to research all the different histories: signatures on greeting cards, locations on postcards, subjects on photographs. I’m not looking to transfer junk from one person’s home to another; I’m learning about the world and hunting for treasure.
I sell a lot of the ephemera online. When possible, I seek out other uses, too. I’ve made art with it. When appropriate, I donate or gift it. Ultimately, for me, it’s about giving the object another life, connecting it to someone who appreciates it. Old documents can be of interest to museums, historical organizations, and libraries. Prop designers, collectors, or academicians can still find utility. There’s an environmental saving grace as well; I’m reusing what was destined for the landfill. (Practically all of my shipping supplies are made from reused materials, too.)
Since I try to keep these Blankman List posts focused on New York City, below I share a handful of NYC-specific sales I’ve made over the last year.
1960 Program for The Fantasticks
The Fantasticks is a now-famed musical that premiered off-Broadway in 1960 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in Greenwich Village. Original programs of that run (which have Tom Jones’ name listed in the program under the pseudonym Thomas Bruce) are hard to come by, and I stumbled upon one in an estate sale a few blocks east of the theater, in Alphabet City. Given the location, this was not a typical estate sale. Objects were sold through an online auction, with a day for winners to pick up their purchases. I was the winning bidder on a collection of theater programs and related ephemera and paid less than this single sale earned me.
1930s Cabinet Photo
In the 1930s, getting your photograph taken was typically a special event where everyone would get dressed up and travel to a photography studio, like the Mermaid Photo Studio in Coney Island. You would come home with a fancy, framed photograph to display on your cabinet. I found this photo buried among a pile of ephemera in a Brooklyn attic, near a chest of art supplies. I had it listed for a while for $20, but I accept almost every offer that I get, including this buyer’s offer of $8.
1959 Museum Prospectus
In 1959, all Museum of Modern Art members received a prospectus in the mail. It described architectural upgrades coming to the museum—a topic likely on their minds in the wake of a fire in 1958, which destroyed a Monet painting. It was fun for me to read through now, as these upgrades have long been eclipsed by more expansions and improvements.
1990s Blockbuster Membership Card
I remember spotting a Blockbuster card in a playroom bin inside an expansive Brooklyn estate that clearly hadn’t seen many kids in a while. That felt like a real treasure of a find. It’s one of those brands associated with such happy memories for me: chaotic walls of color, endless possibilities. I even still have my original Blockbuster card from when I was in high school, and given how little this card sold for and how little space it took up, this is one of the few sales that I actually kind of regret. (I’ll also note that $4.49 might seem steep for shipping a small piece of plastic, but if the card is properly protected and packaged in a bubble mailer, that’s about the right cost.)
1949 Art Exhibition Brochure
In 1949, the New York Public Library held an exhibition of Roger Lacourière, a famed French printmaker. This would have been the free brochure handed out to attendees, giving some background on Lacourière and listing the works and objects being exhibited. This is somewhere between throwaway ephemera and art book—the reason why I grabbed it in the first place. Many art collectors love pamphlets, ads, and other ephemera associated with artists and art movements that they care about.
Treasure Hunting
The examples I picked were based on what eBay still had photos saved for, not necessarily what I found most interesting or lucrative. One notable sale from last year came from a thick stack of handwritten letters that I found stuffed in the corner of a laundry room. They were all from an uncle to his niece and spanned decades, starting from the 1980s. They started as cute, fun poems to a child and became musings of love and support to an adult. In April I sold the lot for $112.
My experience doing this has affected what draws me to different exhibits around the city. I love it when art exhibits showcase ephemera like contracts and advertisements. My monthly Blankman List frequently has exhibits of posters and photographs. I’m in awe of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s expansive collection of trading cards and advertising ephemera.
Much to my husband’s chagrin, I personally hold on to ticket stubs and event programs for practically everything I’ve been to since high school. I even have a few odd baseball and circus tickets from when I was a young child. I go through this collection regularly, perhaps even more often than I’d like to admit. I leaf through old Broadway Playbills and maintain an ever-growing scrapbook filled with tickets and handwritten memories. It feels like a legacy of sorts. Something that brings me joy while I’m still around to appreciate it—and a scrapbook that may one day pique the curiosity of another estate sale buyer.