The Ephemera Society’s president, Val Jackson-Harris, is delighted that the society’s summer fair in London on Sunday, June 2, is the largest it has held for at least five years.
It runs at the Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury in Coram Street, WC1. She said: “We have 40-plus dealers, many of whom have taken two to three tables per stand so we are expanding out into the long hallway by our designated room space.
“Dealers come from across the UK and we will have two exhibitors from the US and one from Germany.
“For the first time ever we have three book dealers standing with us: Jim Hine, Peter Hill and Michael Kemp.”
Dealer Judith Grant, who specialises in historic documents, will be bringing this ‘buried in wool’ certificate dated 1703 and priced at £175 to the Ephemera Society’s summer fair. It certified that the late Dorothy Clarke of Great Kimble in Buckinghamshire had been buried in wool “…not put in wrapt up or buryed in any material made of flax, hemp, silk, silver, gold…but what was made of sheep’s wool only”. This was a requirement of Acts of Parliament that encouraged wool manufacturing and the prevention of linen imports. The burial had to take place within eight days of the funeral.
Date change bonus
To account for this increase in the fair’s size, Jackson-Harris said: “We usually run this fair on the same date as Etc Fairs’ summer book fair in Bloomsbury but the dates are a week apart this year which has benefited us.
“I also think there has been a big increase in interest in ephemera and the society does push the antiques and ephemera link. In its temporary exhibitions at Fairfax House in York, for example, their show on luxury shopping in Georgian England, trade cards are exhibited alongside the antiques on display.”
