Yesterday morning on my way to work, I glanced through the cold morning rain to see a cardboard box in the alley near a bus stop. A tattered piece of cardboard caught my eye, turn-of-the-century display type peeking out from the pile of debris.
I investigated and found a stash of theatrical posters from St. Louis, dated between 1919 and 1928.
On the backs of the posters, years of penciled figures, possibly bookkeeping.
There were about twelve posters. All were lightly soaked from the rain and fragile as hell. I stuffed them frantically into a paper bag which had evidently been intended to hold them but which was unfortunately a bit too small to hold the now-slightly swollen posters.
Most survived, and I even caught my bus.
Broadsides, maybe!!
Yeah, they’re entirely too fragile — were never intended to be permanent, of course. I have one from an old-timey fire-eating magician:
“MAGIC AND MYSTERY!
Prof. Henry Englehart
The Celebrated Prestidigitator
Fire King and Salamander
…..
The Professor, in his CABINET OF WONDERS, will Astonish and Mystify the audience with some of the
Dark Necromancies of the Day!”
etc.
later on in the poster it says
“The Professor EATS FIRE with a Relish”
🙂
These are from later, I think. That’s great, though Bonnie. These are all on cardstock.
Amazing. It’s a shame, but it’s not hard to see why someone thought they were junk.