Immortal Ephemera 10th Anniversary Post

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10 years ago today, March 5, 2002, things-and-other-stuff.com published its first few pages online.

Since it was just supposed to be a simple site intended to promote my auctions I was confident enough to assume it’d probably still be here today. But I had no idea that it would have any value beyond pointing you over to my eBay sales and I thank you if you think it does.

That terrible web address also remains my eBay ID. The two are linked and unlikely to change. I can call the site Immortal Ephemera all I want. I can make as many disruptive changes to the site as I want–though I do believe the site has finally grown out of that period. But it will always be things-and-other-stuff.

While I do still carry a fair amount of general magazine back issues, there was plenty of things–and other stuff–to be found here back in 2002. As many of you know, my collecting and dealer roots are in baseball cards and memorabilia. I carry practically nothing along that line today. Back when I began on eBay in the Spring of 2000 I started like anyone else: I sold anything that wasn’t nailed down. It was mostly sports stuff, leftover from my 80’s and 90’s dealer days but I cleared out old games, action figures, books, philatelic items, even a pretty large painting which had hung in my late grandparents’ home for years and years but had been out of sight, out of mind since their passing because, I’m sorry to say, everyone in the family found it hideous.

Other than a few magazines which were more or less incidental acquisitions, I didn’t really sell any vintage movie goods at all.

That has certainly changed as the decade has passed!

But beyond the sales arena, today Immortal Ephemera only publishes articles and galleries devoted to old movies and classic movie stars. Most of the non-movie related content has been moved to other websites I run. None of those sites is updated with the frequency of Immortal Ephemera though. Beyond being the face of my business Immortal Ephemera has developed into a space where I just like to spend my time. Not only spare time but time I make expressly for being here.

Thanks for spending a little bit of your time with me, for however long that may be. Comments, purchases, new subscriptions, and general statistics let me know you’ve been taking the time and I really want to thank you for allowing every one of those areas to grow, especially in recent years.

Anniversary Coupon

The Immortal Ephemera Store currently stocks over 5,000 different vintage movie collectibles. It is mostly vintage trading cards and ephemeral items at this time though I’ll be working in the coming months to list many more of my still photos to the shop. There is a perpetual 10% off $20 purchase coupon on each store page, but I wanted to make a better offer here for subscribers to spot.

We’ll celebrate the tenth anniversary of Immortal Ephemera with two new coupons good until April 5, 2012. You can now receive 10% off any purchase of just $10 or more with coupon code 10SAVE10. Additionally the coupon 10SAVE20 will deduct 20% off of any purchase of $25 or more from the Immortal Ephemera Store.

No big catches, just one coupon per order. The $10 and $25 minimum amounts are prior to shipping or any taxes being added to the subtotal. The coupon applies only to Immortal Ephemera Store sales and not to auctions or sales listings found on eBay.

All items in the Immortal Ephemera Store are already priced from 10-30% lower than my eBay prices, so I think this is a pretty good sale. I’ve priced items low enough where I can’t really consider a larger percentage.

Use these two coupons as often as you’d like now through April 5, 2012.

Greatest Hits

Finally I wanted to touch upon some of my favorite posts on the site, perhaps pointing you to them for the first time or providing a reminder of something you may have forgotten. Many of my best classic movie related articles have posted in the past couple of years as that’s when I became most serious about posting new content regularly and think the regular work has allowed each article to get a little better as I go along.

That said there are some old Photo ID Guides and Galleries that I love on this site with two of my favorites being the 1916 MJ Moriarty Playing Card Guide and the 1936 R95 8×10 Linen Textured Premium Photo Guide. Each of these sets of collectibles fascinate me because they were so much larger than I’d first imagined. There was more to be collected beyond what first impressions originally offered.

Each of those Guides remain on my old style pages simply because they’re going to be quite the task to update into the more recent format. That said, that will be done for each sometime in 2012.

I also have to point to the entry page for my Freddie Bartholomew biography. This page includes the lengthy bibliography I used in putting together the main 3-part 15,000 word series, but it also contains the final short-version biography of Freddie I wrote when I was all through.

I enjoyed learning about both Adolphe Menjou and Louis Wolheim and find it fascinating that they share two interesting links in their biographies. The story of the Panther Woman contest for Island of Lost Souls was another one that kept me digging as each piece of info I found seemed to link to another fascinating tidbit.

As for movies I’m especially proud of my recent The Voice of Bugle Ann (1936) Dogathon entry, though if you prefer to read about a movie that you may have actually seen I put a lot of effort into my post about The Razor’s Edge (1946).

In the collectible arena my article about Fan Photos proved popular though I prefer my Top 10 British Movie Star Tobacco Set list which didn’t seem to capture anyone else’s fancy at the time.

I also recently updated and polished up one of the oldest pages on the site, About Movie Collectibles, formerly titled something along the lines of What I Sell. It’s a pretty good introduction to the types of collectibles talked about across the Immortal Ephemera site.

I like my movie star index/hub pages as well. It is on those pages that through the magic of WordPress plug-ins I can group all the articles, images and sales items of each specific star onto one special page indexing their every appearance on Immortal Ephemera.

I’ve especially enjoyed every single interview I’ve posted with various authors of film related books including Karloff biographer Scott Allen Nollen, Linda Alexander about Robert Taylor, Michael G. Ankerich about several silent and early talkie stars, and Laura Wagner of Classic Images, whose interview I recently returned to myself when looking for the right Clark Gable biography.

I also have to mention my friend John Stangeland. I actually interviewed John at WarrenWilliam.com but he contributed a fascinating article about Dorothy Dare here, on Immortal Ephemera.

What I Love Best

Thanks so much for reading!

Oh, I can say that you’ll soon be seeing a biography of Dorothy Dell and a look at The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) for a couple of March blogathons I’ve signed on for. I can also say I’m going to do my best to post about Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936) later this month in time for Freddie Bartholomew’s March 28 birthday.

Now that Oscar month is over I’d like to do more TCM-related posts again as well. In fact look for something on Guy Kibbee within a few hours of this post.

But other than those few items I have no clue. It all depends upon what I watch and what arrives for me to sell. Sometimes a topic arises from a strange confluence of something I watch, something I read and something I see online. The coincidences mount until I can’t ignore a seemingly tiny subject that begins to take over my life for a few days. Those are the most fun.

But hopefully I’ll have something good for you soon and hopefully I’ll still be posting fun things-and-other-stuff in this space in the years and decades ahead. I don’t see why not.

ADDENDUM: Just for kicks here’s a link to Immortal Ephemera on the Wayback Machine (don’t mock me!) … and back before the site was primarily a blog alerts to new articles were sent out via Newsletter. Here’s Volume 1, Number 1 from November 2002. What an eyesore … and that’s after a supposed 2004 freshening up I mention at the top of the page! … Finally, how’s this for odd, Another Old Movie Blog was also born on March 5, five years ago today. To celebrate author Jacqueline T. Lynch is offering free downloads of her new book, Classic Films and the American Conscience. Way to go!