Papermania Plus Attracts Buyers From Across The Country

HARTFORD, CONN.

:The sun shone brightly as hundreds of people lined up outside Hartford Civic Center on January 7. They were waiting not for a chance to watch the UConn Huskies basketball team, but for Gary Gipstein of Hillcrest Promotions to open the doors for the 49th Annual Papermania Plus collectors' show. A few minutes before the 10 am opening, Gipstein allowed people to enter and descend the stairs to be one of the first to cross the entrance to this show featuring a variety of paper memorabilia, nostalgic posters, historical documents, postcards, photographs, autographs, magazines, historic photographs, first editions, rare books and advertising premiums. According to Arlene Shea of Hillcrest Promotions, a large crowd crossed the threshold on both Saturday and Sunday, January 7 and 8.

"Many of our dealers have a following in their specialties and exhibit in our show yearly coming from the New England states, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania and some 18 other states, plus Canada," notes show producer Gipstein. Buyers come from across the United States as well, from California to Wyoming and Colorado to Florida - a fact confirmed by conversations with buyers on Saturday morning.

Whether a collector was looking for Victorian paper, as was Todd Kirshner of Punch Studio, Culver City, Calif., at the booth of Elizabeth Baird, Falmouth, Maine, or daguerreotypes as was Casey Waters, an archivist from Connecticut, at Ed Cohen's booth, buyers rushed to fill the almost 160 booths.

In the lobby of the Civic Center, Carl Candels of Avon, Conn., had set up tables with a salute to Marilyn Monroe. He was offering wine bottles with images of Marilyn and posters, but the highlight of his homage to Monroe was a large Napa Valley bottle with Marilyn etched onto the bottle with pull-off strips covering the photo that first appeared in the original Playboy Magazine. He also had sheets of uncut postcards from the 1950s when Monroe was married to playwright Arthur Miller and lived in Connecticut.

There were also postcards and other paper ephemera in the booth of Lewis Parker, Fayette, Maine. He was featuring a book called Lives and Scenes Among the Kickapoo Indians, published by the Kickapoo Medicine Company, New Haven, Conn., circa 1890. "This book is filled with cures and medicines that worked," Parker explained, "probably as well as any we have today."

If toys and games were what one was looking for, moored in the lobby was the booth of John and Grace O'Gara, Wooster, Mass., with a newly acquired key-wind, steam boat circa 1890 that "looks kind of like the Titanic after it was pulled out of the water," said John. Although the condition was rough, it still worked when wound up - the propeller spun and it made noises like a ship plowing through the sea.

Another key-wind toy he had was of Charlie Chaplin dressed in what appeared to be a World War I uniform, that walked when wound up. It was made by the Waterbury Clock Company, O'Gara explained, so he brought it with him to Connecticut. The booth Fun & Games, Kent, Conn., also showed off early games and toys - one game was "The Game of Playing Department Store" and another game called "Battles" came with soldiers, guns, cannon and military paraphernalia - both late Victorian, circa 1890s, when games were "clearly made for one sex or the other," said Paul Fink, proprietor.

If military collecting was what one was looking for, there were several places to stop. Eric Caren of Lincolndale, N.Y., had a fascinating military commission, signed by Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor Bellomont, in 1699, the same year he arrested the pirate Captain Kidd. Caren's booth demonstrated how eclectic some of the collections at this show were. Along side the 1699 signed commission was artist Igor Tiul'panoff's original artwork for a poster commemorating the dedication of the Strawberry Fields of Central Park to John Lennon in 1995. Caren had several copies of the poster for sale as well.

Rex Stark of Gardner, Mass., is a leading dealer in Americana in the United States. He has come to Papermania Plus for many years and this time he was showing an Andrew Jackson Silver Indian Peace Meal. Struck circa 1830, this 3-inch medal had Andrew Jackson on one side and was in almost perfect condition. At $19,500 the medal was "similar to peace medals sold recently from the William Guthman collection at Sotheby's, only bigger," said Stark. Douglas Gomez of New York City was studying the medal and pondering its purchase.

Sharing Stark's booth was John Kashmanian from North Providence, R.I., who "usually sells sports memorabilia, but for this show, I brought many other things," he said, like a passenger list from the Lusitania, but what made it very unusual - and Kashmanian said "probably not as desirable"- was that the list was of the second class passengers.

Other Lusitania items could be found in George Vassel's Window to the Past, Marlboro, Mass., booth where he was excited to show the original blueprints of the historic ship printed in 1907. He had blueprints from eight different cross sections of the Lusitania, which was sunk in 1915 by a German U-boat with a loss of 1,198 lives; only 700 people survived. The blueprints could be purchased as a group for $10,000, "I wouldn't think of selling them separately," Vassel told us. "They are of the whole vessel and they need to be kept together." Unfolded, each section is about 20-30 feet long.

Moving from 1699 to the Twentieth Century took about one minute at the Civic Center. John and Francine Gintoff's almost surrealist booth, Twentieth Century Objex, lured passersby with toys, model heads, a derby hat and dressmaker's mannequin. Another collector-dealer with Twentieth Century items was Bob Shepherd of Niantic, Conn. He was showing a 1930s cloth bear kit that had several cloth dolls that could be made into three-dimensional figures by stitching them together - they were complete with advertisements for Bear Brand Hosiery - "sew it up and make a toy."

Toys, old coffee cans, tobacco tins, trays, advertising signs, marbles and posters could be found at Ken Ostrow's booth. He had brought with him a special 1890 Springfield Brewing Company Advertisement he had found in the attic of a home in Springfield, Mass., his home base. It was printed by Milton Bradley company, he believed, because "they were the only ones with a large enough press to print something so large," he commented.

A print with great history was one of Oscar Wilde. Taken after he came to the United States, and told the immigration officials that all he was bringing to the US was "his wit and intelligence," this rare cabinet card of Wilde by Sarony, 1882, shows him dressed as a dandy in a velvet jacket, knee britches and black stockings. Signed with his signature "O," John Hendsey from Rumney, N.H. said he had many people looking at it but no buyers yet although at $5,500 it was tempting.

Ed Cohen of Bristol, Conn., had a card similar in size and also printed in New York City, but his showed a slave named Wilson Chinn sporting all the gear often put on runaway slaves, from a neck collar with spikes to leg shackles. The photograph was taken in 1863 by Kimball and, according to Cohen, was one of the earliest Black Americana photo cards he had. Cohen's booth held many historic photographs, daguerreotypes and ambrotypes but this card of a branded slave was chilling as well as fascinating.

Far less somber, in fact, frilly and lacey, was Elizabeth Baird Ephemera. In a booth filled with Victorian paper, early valentines and love tokens, watercolors, school girl art, albums, botanicals, prints, toys, textiles and small country accessories, there were customers lining up just to browse through her collection. Kirshner said he had come just to find Victorian scrap, which he then makes into stationary products. Baird was so busy she even had to take down one of her shelves. "I'm not packing up," she said, "I just sold the shelf!" She was tired but pleased by the end of the day Sunday.

Those who visited the show on Sunday were offered a special feature: at no charge, experts from among the dealers at the show would appraise "treasures" the public brought with them. The appraisal table was open from 11 am to 2 pm and was one of the most popular features of this ever-popular show.

Shea commented after the event that there was a "great gate, but the numbers are not the most important part, the people who come here are collectors and sometimes dealers; regardless, they are buyers. Even when weather keeps the crowd down, the dealers do well because they are offering something that the collectors want." The weather certainly cooperated this year; even a dusting of snow on Sunday morning did little to slow the traffic into the Civic Center.

Shea and Gipstein are looking forward to their next show, to be held August 26 and 27, which will be their 50th show. "We have plans even more exciting than this one," said Arlene. "It will be a huge celebration, almost 25 years, it is hard to believe."

For information, Hillcrest Promotions, www.papermaniaplus.com, 800-563-9975 or 800-529-2234.