This website seeks to encourage researchers and collectors to discover and study obscure ephemera that document American culture and life.  Worldcat reveals that most of the items that I post cannot be found in more than a few research libraries–often none at all.  Alternately, research libraries do not bother to catalog ephemeral publications like these.  I believe, however, that because these were distributed free, or at nominal cost, to consumers, they were the publications most likely to make their way into homes and be read by large numbers of Americans.

I acquire pre-1960 examples of the kinds of publications that prove so useful when scholars study 19th-Century America.  The limited competition that I encounter for them suggests that libraries, which could easily outbid me, have little interest in post-Civil War and 20th-century ephemeral publications in general.

I try to anticipate what materials future historians will find useful.  Being an historian first and a collector second, I organized this website to encourage others to do this too—even if this means new competition for me. I am aware that I could be wrong in prizing particular ephemera or even whole classes of ephemera.  I may even be wrong to encourage scholars to study obscure ephemeral publications; these may be obscure for good reason.

Ephemerastudies.org will permit me to share with others the information and imagery that I am acquiring, and to benefit from the knowledge, intelligence and experience of other scholars and collectors.  Please contact me with your impressions of the site.

~ Saul Zalesch

Title

Spy Smasher Mini-Comic Book 1943
Category
Magazine, gallery
Date

1943
Why It's Interesting

This was one of numerous mini-comic books issued during World War II.  They are around 4 inches tall.  For some reason, they are among the least desirable and thus the most cheaply acquired super-hero comics of their era.  Comic books were constantly being enlisted in the service of the War effort.  Superman, Captain Marvel, and even Blondie, encouraged young readers to do their share to win the war: whether this be buying savings stamps, helping in paper drives, or keeping their eyes open for enemy planes.

There is a greater disparity in value among specimens in the collecting of comic books, baseball cards, and other youthful passions than in other fields of collecting.  Even apart from the enormous premium placed on condition, less-desirable titles, even if rarer than desired ones because fewer people read or preserved them, sell for nominal sums.  In the collecting of relics of childhood, demand is everything; rarity seems meaningless absent demand.  Such disparity seems to me the sign of an immature field, even if it includes some million dollar prices.  In established fields of collecting, such as coins, stamps, art, etc. rarity itself is enough to make an item desirable.

Perhaps, though, we should commend those who collect comic books and such items: they value only what they really want, not things just because they happen to be rare.  [Though this would be an argument against my kind of collecting].
 
Spy Smasher Mini-Comic Book 1943 Spy Smasher Mini-Comic Book 1943