Bronze

Just Opened and Ready For Business

Karl's Ephemera
vintage collectible memorabilia ... Books Autographs Ephemera

View All Shop's Items (33)

---

Sale Items (1)

About Karl's Ephemera

Our Service Pledge To You:
We respond to all orders within 24 hours, we guarantee the authenticity of all our items as described.

About Us
With over 35 years of experience and a record of integrity , fairness and honesty in the purchase and sale of antiques books & autographs, we are in a position to educate and help collectors. Our past customers include a number of major private libraries as well as educators from various institutions . We maintain a stock of high quality material at reasonable cost.

There are only a few experienced general autograph dealers today, many dealers and authenticators have become what they are in a fort night with no experience but plenty of imagination and sales ability. Reliable dealers have certain common characteristics and maintain reputation for integrity . They guarantee the authenticity of the material they sell. Their experience has been gained, occasionally at considerable personal financial expense during the learning phase. They encourage the collector to do the research on their own and not rely on the third party authenticators and the ornate documents allegedly proving an items authenticity. This is not to say that a collector should not seek a second opinion, but that opinion should be from a reputable dealer, who has years of active experience with handwriting samples, inks, papers, and knowledge of history. Often when collectors have been involved for a year or two, they begin to feel they can operate in some instances less advice from a dealer and perhaps find hidden sources and with knowledge to make reasonable decisions. Forgeries, secretarial examples ,wrong identities, machine generated, and printed signatures are easy to identify and avoid once a collector has gained experience.

One of the biggest pitfalls in autograph collecting today is the third party authenticators. These companies receive thousands of items each day. In order to keep up with the huge demand they hire more help. The help are often people with zero years of experience, who are trained to look at basic samples and if in doubt-do not pass authentication. There are thousands of similar stories of people waiting hours in line for an autograph at a book signing,baseball signing,astronaut signing. These collectors decide the autographs will be of greater dollar value by sending the item and a check off to the XYZ company only to be disappointed when the item is returned to them with a form letter stating "item did not pass our authentication process".

These authentication companies charge upwards of $ 75.00 per C.O.A. There will be a day when these C.O.As will not be worth any added value. One side effect to COAs is they can give the collector a false sense of security.

our autographs come with a receipt that states ,in writing, the item is authentic as described.

There are many wonderful books on autograph collecting. Two wonderful authors are Charles Hamilton and Mary R. Benjamin. Many books on autograph collecting are out of print and as a result are quite expensive , but they more than pay for themselves over time. The collector that develops his/her own reference library and far better off in the long run.

..........................................................................
Terminology

Graphology (Autograph Collecting) has specific terms for sizes – folded to make four pages = QUARTO, approx 8 by 12 inches, about the size of most business letters . Another fold to produce eight pages and the size is OCTAVO – generally now about 6 by 8 inches , Abbreviated in dealer catalogs to 4to and 8vo , these are the most common sizes for most items and appropriate terminology is used in this listing. Books may also be described using these sizing terms.

SP=Signed Photograph ISP=Inscribed Photograph B&W=Black&White

ALS=Autograph Letter Signed (entire letter in in the hand of the person)

TLS=Typed Letter signed LS= Letter Signed(The body might be in the hand of a secretary as was the way prior to the typewriter)

DS=Document Signed