As most of you know, I spend a fair amount of time scouring the Internet for both interesting pieces of Ephemera… and sites that are Ephemera related or contain interesting Ephemera articles.
Today I came across the “War Relics Forum” which describes itself as “A place for serious military historians and collectors. A Forum dedicated to 3 Reich and Soviet Red Army units before and in the WW2 period…” There is nothing I can find which tells me about the creator of the site or location.. but judging from it’s .eu (as opposed to .com) address, I of course assume it originates somewhere in Europe.
Within that Forum is a section entitled Documents, paper items, photos, propaganda. The Administrator of that section is a fellow named Adrian Stevenson from South Derbyshire, Great Britain. As you look through the various posts you will find an amazing collection of Ephemeral items such as the propaganda brochures shown on the left and the 1968 Vietnam Christmas card shown below.
The text that goes along with the Christmas card posting reads “A little Christmas humor. I had this card made while serving with the 240th AHC at Bear Cat, Vietnam in Dec 1968“
Not to steal from your enjoyment when visiting the site, let me add just one more item from the site.. to wet your appetite a bit more. This apparently (from the forum) was a poster by the celebrated American artist Joseph Hirsch (1910 – 1981) . 
He worked for Abbott Laboratories during WW11 producing artworks to illustrate the war effort . ” Till We Meet Again” was his first work for them and became the most widely produced war bond poster . He also covered themes for naval aviation, naval medicine, as well as the Italian front and operations in North Africa for the Army. Thirty-two of his works are in the Naval Art Collection, and many more are in permanent collections in museums and fine art institution. During his lifetime Hirsch won every major award offered for American artists.
So if you have any interest at all in war ephemera, I’d suggest a visit to the War Relics Forum and most particularly to the Documents, paper items, photos, propaganda sub-forum. I think you will find many interesting articles and items of interesting ephemera. Be aware that the Forum has a viewing limitation but once you register (for free) you can peruse to your hearts content.
I’m Tom Murphy and thanks for helping me give Ephemera the Encore it deserves.
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Technorati tags: Encore Ephemera, Ephemera, Ephemera Network
This poster on the site also caught my eye .. with it’s interesting caption: “Enemy Ears are Listening”. You are referred from there to a whole load of 
I recently listed, on eBay, a very old Dinky car known as the “Studebaker State Commander”. This particular item (Dinky number 24O) is somewhat unique as it was built by Meccano France… as opposed to the original British toy company that was established in 1908 by a gentleman named Frank Hornby. During the 1920s and 1930s it became the biggest toy manufacturer in Britain and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys.
During the Second World War the Meccano factories were commandered by the invading Germans and used in the Nazi war effort, as well as production of model vehicles in the German Marklin range. Then, in the early post-war years the model vehicles were forced to be shod with metal wheels due to Nazi activity during the war which had virtually cut off supplies of rubber to France. Rubber tyres were not fitted again on models until 1950.
If you are more interested in the Studebaker line of cars.. than the Dinky toys, you may want to look at 
There are hundreds of pictures, and even some EPHEMERA ads for the cars during the war period. You will soon find that Studebaker was involved in more than just manufacturing automobiles.
The article talks about sheet music for songs from times of war. The one depicted here is called “I’d Be Proud to be the Mother of a Soldier.” It shows a white haired lady with a lacy collar and black dress. She’s holding onto the hand of a soldier in WWI uniform. The words to the song lament that their son has to go off ‘to fight’ and they ‘pray for peace.’
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