Defining Ephemera in the Context of Collection
Marilyn Monroe Photograph of Set Celebration by Lawrence Schiller, 32/75. M.S. Rau.
When I moved out of my childhood home, my mom called asking when I was going to pick up my box of 'special items'—the same box that, like many mothers, she had filled with everything from my swimming participation ribbons to my 'award winning' short story on the daily lives of woodland creatures. As a young adult, carrying the box through the threshold of my starter apartment felt a bit silly, but I now cherish the items my mom chose to collect, each standing as a living symbol of who I was in that short moment of time.
I started collecting ephemera myself on my own during a semester in London, choosing to keep a scrapbook filled with ever-fading receipts, ticket stubs, photos and a stray printout of a dinosaur someone left on a printer. That scrapbook became a cherished record of a formative time. Over the years, I've continued this tradition, collecting small, unassuming artifacts and pasting them down. Turns out, I am not alone.
So what exactly is ephemera?
The word ephemera derives from the Greek ephēmeros, meaning "lasting only a day." In collecting terms, ephemera refers to the often-overlooked byproducts of daily life, items not meant to last, but which have nonetheless been preserved. These can include everything from menus, postcards and flyers to marriage certificates, ration cards and even fabric samples or advertising tins.
Jimmy the Greek's Personal Address Book. M.S. Rau.
Created for specific, short-term purposes, ephemera capture cultural moods and societal norms in ways that more formal records cannot. What makes them so compelling is their immediacy. These are things people touched, used and discarded.
While art history often centers on official portraits or documents of the wealthy, ephemera offer traces of the everyday; voices otherwise lost to time. Whether preserved in museum archives, tucked into personal albums or tucked away in attic boxes, these fragments tell intimate, unfiltered stories. In collecting them, we preserve not just paper, but lived experience.
The Evolution of Ephemera Collection Through the 20th Century
Long have we been compelled to document family life in tangible form. Not long after Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century, families began recording their personal histories on the blank flyleaves of their Bibles. These handwritten entries of births, marriages and deaths became some of the earliest forms of personal record-keeping that survive today.
Portable Copying Machine by James Watt & Co. Circa 1795. M.S. Rau.
Over time, publishers formalized the practice. By the mid-1800s, printed templates were included in Bibles specifically for this purpose, and it became common for families to tuck in newspaper clippings, birth announcements, obituaries and photographs. These Bibles held a curated history of both private memory and public milestones.
As early as the 16th century, predominantly male scholars kept commonplace books and annotated volumes in a practice known as "grangerizing." By the 19th century, with the rise of printed materials, scrapbooking evolved into a mainstream activity enjoyed particularly by women. Elaborate “friendship albums,” calling card books and scrap albums filled with postcards, trade cards, labels and chromolithographs became widely popular in the Victorian era.
Edmund Culpeper’s Trade Card with Culpeper Compound Microscope. Circa 1730. M.S. Rau.
The 20th century brought a transformation. While people had long saved scraps of their lives for personal reasons, the practice of ephemera collection gained structure, visibility and historical value. With the explosion of print culture in magazines, advertisements, packaging, tickets and mailers, ephemera became a large part of modern life. The rise of department stores and mass marketing created a flood of disposable printed matter, yet people increasingly chose to keep examples.
1969 Top Value Stamps Family Gift Catalog. Cover painting, A New Hat, sold at M.S. Rau.
Take this 1969 Top Value Stamps Family Gift Catalog with a charming cover by Norman Rockwell for example. In the mid-20th century, trading stamp programs like Top Value captivated American households, offering rewards for customer loyalty through redeemable merchandise. To set itself apart, Top Value partnered with Rockwell, whose wholesome, humorous illustrations graced their catalogs for nine straight years, allowing families not only to browse gifts but to enjoy a piece of Rockwell art. Like Sears Roebuck catalogs, Art Deco perfume labels or 1950s mail-order fashion ads, these catalogs became cherished ephemera, reflecting the commercial culture and visual storytelling of the era.
During the World Wars, government-issued pamphlets, ration books, enlistment notices and propaganda posters were saved alongside personal letters and photographs. These items are now invaluable historical records. In the postwar decades, consumerism and pop culture flourished, and so did nostalgia. Ephemera like concert tickets, cereal box prizes, Disneyland maps and rock band flyers became collectibles in their own right, capturing the spirit of the mid-century moment.
WWI Soldier Trench Art. Sold at M.S. Rau.
By the late 20th century, institutions began to take note. Scholars, designers and archivists recognized that these fragments held cultural significance. Organizations like the Ephemera Society of America were founded, and museums began acquiring advertising circulars, menus, matchbooks and more. American artists began incorporating everyday ephemera into contemporary art, recognizing their potential as both historical documents and artistic media.
As the century drew to a close, the digital revolution introduced a layer of complexity. What does ephemera mean in an age of disappearing websites, email chains and evaporating file formats? Items once printed are now often virtual, but no less fleeting. Collectors and archivists today are increasingly attentive to these digital ghosts such as early PDFs, banner ads and tech packaging, as the next wave of cultural artifacts.
Celebrity Ephemera: The Allure of Personal Connections
There's something irresistible about holding a piece of a legend’s life in your hands. A letter, a photograph, a scrap of paper or a lock of hair—celebrity ephemera has the power to collapse time and space, pulling us closer to the people who helped shape culture, history, and imagination. Celebrity memorabilia reveals history through personality. These artifacts offer a rare chance to connect with those who have captivated the world.
Consider a remarkable group of letters to and from Marlon Brando. Among them, a 1973 letter from a Native American community in Los Angeles thanks him for refusing his Oscar in protest of Hollywood's portrayal of Indigenous people. That single gesture, and the correspondence it inspired, captured a turning point in both entertainment and activism. Other letters from figures like Hunter S. Thompson and Henry Kissinger offer surprising glimpses into the world Brando navigated as both a star and an advocate.
Letter from Hunter S. Thompson to Marlon Brando. M.S. Rau.
Other ephemera at M.S. Rau offers even more intimate portraits, like a school essay, neatly handwritten by a 14-year-old George S. Patton, Jr. Decades before he would become a brilliant and controversial general, Patton was a boy struggling with dyslexia, captivated by tales of ancient warfare. His essay, still marked with his teacher's red ink, is believed to be the earliest surviving example of his writing and a poignant reminder that greatness often starts quietly.
Patton Framed Essay "The Story of a Greek Soldier". Sold at M.S. Rau.
Some relics offer an even more immediate intimacy. A preserved strand of George Washington’s hair, for instance, provides a physical link to the founding of the United States—remarkable not for what it represents, but for its direct proximity to historical greatness.
George Washington's Hair and Funerary Case Shavings. M.S. Rau.
Hollywood legends are well represented, too. A signed photo of Charlie Chaplin recalls the genius of early cinema. Signed checks from Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio evoke not only their star power but their turbulent love story, one of the most watched and whispered-about romances in American pop culture. And a striking portrait of Monroe by photographer Lawrence Schiller captures her just as the world remembers her: luminous, vulnerable and unforgettable.
Charlie Chaplin Autographed Photo. M.S. Rau.
Collecting Ephemera as Contemporary Art Practice
What was once dismissed as disposable is now celebrated as meaningful. Ephemera has found a place not only in personal scrapbooks and historical archives but also within the highest tiers of the art world.
Institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art have embraced ephemera as both cultural artifacts and artistic media. The Met's extensive ephemera collection includes items such as photographs, cigarette cards and over 30,000 baseball cards—the largest public collection outside the Baseball Hall of Fame. Among them is the legendary T206 Honus Wagner card, printed by the American Tobacco Company and now considered one of the rarest and most valuable baseball cards in existence. Once a modest promotional item tucked into cigarette packs, the Wagner card has fetched over $6 million at auction, underscoring how ephemeral material can gain not only cultural but substantial monetary value over time.
T206 Honus Wagner Baseball Card. Circa 1910. Source.
The collecting of ephemera as a form of visual anthropology has filtered into contemporary art practice as well. Artists have long used ephemeral media such as collage, printouts, handbills and even food in their work. But some push the boundaries of ephemerality itself. In Janine Antoni's Lick and Lather (1993), the artist cast fourteen self-portrait busts, seven in chocolate, seven in soap, and transformed each through intimate acts of licking and bathing.
Lick and Lather by Janine Antoni. 1993. Source.
The embrace of ephemeral materials extends to land art as well. Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty (1970), constructed in Utah's Great Salt Lake, exemplifies how American artists used natural materials to create ephemeral artworks that exist in dialogue with time and environment. This monumental earthwork, alternately visible and submerged, embodies the concept of transience that defines much ephemeral art. Similarly, street art and body art represent artistic movements that embrace the ephemeral nature of their medium, creating short-lived works in public spaces that challenge traditional notions of what constitutes a work of art.
Spiral Jetty from atop Rozel Point, in mid-April 2005. Source.
The shift toward valuing ephemera—whether historical or conceptual—reflects a larger cultural recognition: that fleeting moments, once thought insignificant, may offer the most authentic insight into the texture of everyday life. In embracing the ephemeral, collectors and curators alike are helping to preserve what was never meant to last, yet remains profoundly resonant.
Do you have the collector’s urge? View our celebrity memorabilia collection to discover your next perfect historic treasure!
