Those of us who spend a lot of time on the Internet or our SmartPhone, and particularly those of us who blog, find that Twitter is becoming more and more our daily social media outlet. We read volumes of “tweets” each day, and at the same time we are known to make a fair number of tweets and re-tweets ourselves.

Shannon Albert, who runs her own blog entitled My Obsessions was a guest poster today on Twitips – an online guide to getting more out of twitter. Her article was entitled as above.. “5 Commonly Misunderstood Things on Twitter” and in it she talks about the 5 common things people tend to lose track of – the things they don’t do because they’re not reminded of their functions.

Her list is here.. but I’ll refer you to her actual article for the details behind each item:

• Starting a Tweet with an @
• Putting your Twitter profile address in the URL field
• Thinking the new RT feature is untrackable
• Asking all of Twitter to “DM for more info”
• Not knowing how to favorite or “star” a Tweet

If you spend any time at all on Twitter, this article is worth a read.

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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I recently came across the blog of Mr. Paul Fraser who hails from Bristol, in the United Kingdom.

His recent post entitled “Ambulance driver’s exceptional WW1 collection appears on eBay” caught my attention because it included a number of Ephemera items.

As Paul says:

The collection is currently the talk of militaria collectors’ forums, comprising the medals, badges and manuscripts of Private Addison H Smith, a WW1 driver in the US Ambulance Service.

While Paul does not tell us the specific eBay listing number or link to it… he does have a number of pictures presumably from the auction listing.  I’m going to turn to my friend Marty Weil over at the Ephemera blog and see if he can find this particular listing for us.

Marty has done a fantastic job of late in reporting on some terrific Ephemera being sold on eBay… so I hope he can find this one so we can all follow it.

Paul’s blog is quite interesting and while not entirely Ephemera connected, it does have a bit of interesting memorabilia.  How about A letter written from George Washington during his time as President to Thomas Jefferson, who was to become the third US President?

Have a look and see what attracts your attention on Paul’s blog.  I am sure he has something of interest to most all of us.

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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I must admit that I have wondered once or twice about its origin.. but only those few times.

Thanks now to the Museum of Modern Art (Moma) in New York City, we get some interesting insight into its origin.

Some linguists believe that @ dates back to the sixth or seventh century, a ligature meant to fuse the Latin preposition ad—meaning “at”, “to,” or “toward”—into a unique pen stroke. The symbol persisted in sixteenth-century Venetian trade, where it was used to mean amphora, a standard-size terracotta vessel employed by merchants, which had become a unit of measure. Interestingly, the current Spanish word for @, arroba, also indicates a unit of measure.

The @ symbol was known as the ‘”commercial ‘a’” when it appeared on the keyboard of the American Underwood typewriter in 1885, and it was defined as such, for the first time, in the American Dictionary of Printing & Bookmaking in 1894. From this point on the symbol itself was standardized both stylistically and in its application, and it appeared in the original 1963 ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) list of computer codes. At the time @ was explained as an abbreviation for the word “at” or for the phrase “at the rate of,” mainly used in accounting and commercial invoices.

From a post on MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design blog we learn that the museum has acquired the @ symbol into its collection.

The acquisition of @, they say, relies on the assumption that physical possession of an object as a requirement for an acquisition is no longer necessary, and therefore it sets curators free to tag the world and acknowledge things that “cannot be had”—because they are too big (buildings, Boeing 747’s, satellites), or because they are in the air and belong to everybody and to no one, like the @—as art objects befitting MoMA’s collection.

Have a skip over to the MOMA blog, appropriately named “Inside/Out” and have a look @ MOMA

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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I received my copy of The Beginners Guide to Blogging last Friday and spent much of the weekend going over its many chapters. I’ve not read it completely yet, but I must say, I’m quite impressed with the work the author put into his book.

Mike Cliffe-Jones writes a very popular blog entitled “Mike’s Life” … and he does it from his paradise location in the Canary Islands.  He’s worked REALLY hard on this project, and it shows!   The best news is that it’s finally available to the public.

The book is not only authored by a great guy that know what he’s talking about, but it also features some great lessons and homework assignments to get you started fast!  Who knows, with some of the information in this book you too can become a top blogger… like these folks:

Blogging Awesomeness

The book has a whole lot to offer – especially to the new blogger.

If you’re interested in starting a blog, or taking your blog to the next level.. which quite honestly is why I bought the book… then read this book!.  To make the deal a bit sweeter, Mike is also offering a blog consulting package to go along with your book. I think he’s crazy, but he’s offering a great discount!

If  you’re like me, you’ve got a lot going on, but there has never been a better time to start planning for a profitable year than right now…so buy this book, use it to create your blogging master plan, and create the life you’ve been dreaming of!

It’s a great book and I am sure anyone who reads it will be inspired and informed a whole bunch of times. When you buy it through my link you get a great ebook and also I get a little something for my efforts – but I would suggest any future blogger check it out even if I had nothing to do with it and nothing to gain.

You could be reading your copy of The Beginners Guide to Blogging!  within 60 seconds. Click Here to get The Beginners Guide to Blogging!

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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The City of Seattle is about to celebrate the 25 year anniversary of the “Seattle Municipal Archives”.

A blog entitled DorpatSherrardLomont (the names of the 3 contributors) talks about it in today’s post.

I’ll not go into any detail, other than to show you these two photos.. of the 1936 archives, and of today’s Municipal Archives.

Have a look at the blog entitled Seattle Now & Then: City Achieves Silver Anniversary here.. and also the Seattle Municipal archives here.

I am sure the large cities and counties have impressive archives, full of Ephemera. I wonder what the small towns, villages and municipalities are doing to preserve their materials? If you have any information on YOUR locale, how about sharing it with us here?

Oh, and if you are in Seattle this Tuesday, stop over at the Bertha Knight Landes Room at City Hall… it will be a fun event I am sure.

By the way, scroll down on the DorpatSherrardLomont blog… they have lots of other Ephemeral item worth looking at.

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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Back in 1892 The F. Weyerhaeuser, a 140-foot sternwheeler built for towing logs, was christened by the Weyerhaeuser and Denkman Company.  Many years later, in 1923 actually, Weyerhaeuser’s first ocean shipping operation was launched with the purchase of two freighters, the Ponoma and the Hanley.  The ships were used to carry lumber from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast.  And then, another 10 years later, the Weyerhaeuser Steamship Company was established in Newark, New Jersey.

I mention all this because a woman in New York, by the name of Melissa Ring, has a terrific vintage paper site known as Attic Paper and one of the wonderful Ephemeral items she has for sale is a 1935 Weyerhaeuser Line Steamship Schedule.  It’s an original vintage schedule issued on March 6, 1935. She mentions that it was a folded mailer that has the recipients address on the reverse side. It measures approximately 8″ x 8.5″ when opened and is in excellent condition.

Melissa has put a great deal of effort into her store.. and it shows.  Not only does she have some very interesting pieces of Ephemera for sale… her overall design and look of the store is very appealing.  She obviously has a graphic designer/web designer background.

Her items are categorized into seven different groupings as follows:

• Vintage Magazine Ads
• Antique Engravings/Prints
• Vintage Booklets/Catalogs
• Vintage Recipe Booklets
• Old Postcards/Trade Cards
• Old Magazine Articles
• Vintage Magazine Covers
• Miscellaneous Ephemera

The two that I have shown here are from the Miscellaneous Ephemera section, and there you will find quite a number of other interesting, unusual and wonderful Ephemera items.

But be sure to visit all of her categories as you will find any number of items that may interest you.  I for example found a wonderful article dated1872 about the New York Harbor Police.  It even includes illustrations of the Police Boat “Seneca” and the interior of a junk shop which was a favorite rendezvous for thieves on the East River.  You may soon find that gone from her inventory… when I make a purchase.  All of her items by the way seem to be listed at very reasonable prices, given the age and historical value of the items.  And her shipping rate?  $1.99 for all items shipped within the US and Canada.

For those of you into Vintage Movie items, like my friend Cliff Aliperti of  Things and Other Stuff, you’ll want to have a look at Melissa’s Vintage Movie Ads section where you’ll find a large group of movie memorabilia.  Did someone say Sandra Dee from Tammy Tell Me True??

So head on over to Attic Paper and have a look. You’ll be glad you did.

I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.

Have a look at my eBay Ephemera store
or at my Bonanzle Booth
or at my Zen Cart

I’ve even got an eBay Auction site for collectibles

Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network

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