Ephemera

Ephemeral material is intended to only have a very short ‘life’. It is created for one use and then is usually thrown away - for instance bus tickets, concert programmes and greetings cards.

Nevertheless, ephemera can survive. Our ephemera collection has items that date back nearly 300 years. It includes items generated for or by the Post Office and Royal Mail, as well as other material created in the public domain that relates to postal services and activities.

We look after officially produced ephemera such as postbus tickets, adhesive stickers and mail bag labels.

Other types of ephemera in our collection include programmes for concerts held in support of The Post Office Orphans Fund and The Post Office Rifles; 18th and 19th century trade cards for subpost offices; mail coach timetables; Valentine cards as far back as 1790;  the first Victorian Christmas card made for Sir Henry Cole in 1840; and examples of Victorian illustrated writing papers that are forerunners of the picture postcard.

Due to the fragile nature of ephemera it is not always easy to display. We are exploring ways to create a digital record of our ephemera collection to make it more easily and widely available.