International Friends of Bookmarks
  • Home
    • News from 2019
  • About
    • Member News
    • Contact
    • Site Map
    • Raffle
  • Blog
  • Bookmark Swap
  • WOBODA
    • WOBODA 2024
    • WOBODA 2023 >
      • WOBODA 2022
      • WOBODA 2021 >
        • WOBODA 2020
        • WOBODA 2019 >
          • WOBODA 2018
          • WOBODA 2017
          • Wobo on World Tour 2016
  • Gallery
    • Gallery Page 3 - New Year's
    • Gallery Page 4 - Bookmarks on Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 5 - Care of Books
    • Gallery Page 6 - Owls
    • Gallery Page 7 - Woboda Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 8 - Countries
    • Gallery Page 9 - Bookmarks Speak
  • Library
    • Reading Room
    • Book Reviews
    • Bookmark Quotes
    • IFOB Publications >
      • Earliest History of Bookmarks
      • Diamond Registration Marks on British Bookmarks
      • World Literature Classics
      • Holiday Haunts Bookmarks of the Great Western Railway
      • Reprints of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games Bookmarks
      • Fascinating Bookmarks
      • Traditional Costumes of Countries - A bookmark Series by Rowohlt Verlag
      • Charting the Course of Celluloid Bookmarks
    • On Marking Books Redux >
      • Books and Cards Worth Giving
  • Bibliographies
  • Workshop
  • Events
  • Links
  • Bookmark Producers

Saving Pages: A selection of vintage bookmarks

27/8/2016

0 Comments

 
by Matt Gilbert  (reposted from richlyevocative.net)

During a recent spot of tidying at home, I came across a box containing my childhood collection of bookmarks.

When I was growing up my parents were second-hand booksellers in Bristol. One exciting perk, or by-product of this for me as a kid, was finding all kinds of bookmarks that previous readers had left behind in many of the books Mum and Dad bought, which I was allowed to keep. Very occasionally you’d also find paper money hidden within the pages of books too, but this I wasn’t allowed to keep.
​

Sifting through some of the bookmarks, it was interesting to note a few themes or threads.
Picture

Judging by the numbers produced (many more than shown here) Insurance companies appear to have been big on bookmarks.

The likes of Scottish Widows, Royal Exchange and Northern Assurance once appeared to commission a lot of commercial artists to illustrate their own branded bookmarks. I suppose it makes sense for an industry that spends much of its time reminding people to renew or change policies to print these reminders on objects devoted to the very purpose of remembering.
Picture

I particularly like the Northern Assurance series of city and townscape panoramas – including London and Aldeburgh in Suffolk.
Picture

Animals and scenes and subjects from nature also feature on many of the bookmarks – I seem to have had a thing for birds – the box contained quite a few bookmarks with illustrations of real birds along with various others – including Puffin of course – used to promote books and reading.
Picture
Picture

Some of the most interesting and funny bookmarks I’d collected are old public service messages and adverts, with their now almost comically stilted sounding phrasing and matter of fact declarations of quality, or finger wagging warnings and informative notices.

Amongst the ads, pens, cigars and cigarettes figure prominently – I’d guess that this is because their shape is perfect for reproduction on a bookmark.
My favourite is a bookmark extolling the virtues of bus travel: TAKE IT EASY. TAKE A BUS. Clearly produced in an age before Mrs. Thatcher made her infamous (albeit possibly apocryphal) declaration that: “A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.” – although the illustration on the bus bookmark shows a rather self-satisfied looking woman,  (looking not unlike Margaret Thatcher funnily enough), who’s delighted to have nabbed herself one of the cool seats upstairs at the back.
Picture
Picture
Picture

There are also a few here with an esoteric theme – this was my Dad’s specialist area so there are some bookmarks featuring the likes of Madame Blavatsky, promoting Occult bookshops or histories of The Rosicrucians.
​
​
Picture

​Naturally many bookmarks feature writers and poets, alongside the bookshops that sold their work. I was sad to note that all of the Bristol based ones I found now no longer exist. I can remember what an incredible, eye-widening treasure house George’s Children’s department used to be. This is described on their bookmark as having “the largest stock of books in the West for children of all ages”. Take that Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and South Wales.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture

I hope you enjoy taking a look at some of these as much as I once enjoyed collecting them.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    IFOB BLOG

    Attention
    To comment on the blog posts, please click the link:
    "0 Comments "or"x Comments"  

    ​
    You wish to tell us a nice story about bookmarks or collect-ing? This is the right place.
    Go ahead and
    contact us.

    Archives

    April 2025
    August 2024
    May 2024
    March 2024
    July 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    March 2022
    December 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    May 2020
    April 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    August 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016

    Categories

    All
    Asim Maner Awards
    Book Fairs
    Bookmark Collectors
    Bookmark Producers
    Bookmarks General
    Bookmark Swap Meets
    Collecting Bookmarks
    Handmade Bookmarks
    IFOB
    Member Profiles
    World Bookmark Day

    RSS Feed

Home                                     CONTACT  

Picture
 INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS OF BOOKMARKS (IFOB)
www.ifobookmarks.org    I  facebook.com/bookmarksfriends  |   i[email protected] 
  • Home
    • News from 2019
  • About
    • Member News
    • Contact
    • Site Map
    • Raffle
  • Blog
  • Bookmark Swap
  • WOBODA
    • WOBODA 2024
    • WOBODA 2023 >
      • WOBODA 2022
      • WOBODA 2021 >
        • WOBODA 2020
        • WOBODA 2019 >
          • WOBODA 2018
          • WOBODA 2017
          • Wobo on World Tour 2016
  • Gallery
    • Gallery Page 3 - New Year's
    • Gallery Page 4 - Bookmarks on Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 5 - Care of Books
    • Gallery Page 6 - Owls
    • Gallery Page 7 - Woboda Bookmarks
    • Gallery Page 8 - Countries
    • Gallery Page 9 - Bookmarks Speak
  • Library
    • Reading Room
    • Book Reviews
    • Bookmark Quotes
    • IFOB Publications >
      • Earliest History of Bookmarks
      • Diamond Registration Marks on British Bookmarks
      • World Literature Classics
      • Holiday Haunts Bookmarks of the Great Western Railway
      • Reprints of the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games Bookmarks
      • Fascinating Bookmarks
      • Traditional Costumes of Countries - A bookmark Series by Rowohlt Verlag
      • Charting the Course of Celluloid Bookmarks
    • On Marking Books Redux >
      • Books and Cards Worth Giving
  • Bibliographies
  • Workshop
  • Events
  • Links
  • Bookmark Producers