Beth's Ruler Collection

What's missing?

This linen postcard arrived yesterday, and while I love the design, and while the card fits right into my Collection Policy, it just feels like something is missing:

• Made of paper? yes
• Ruler image? yes
• Ad for Ostrich and Alligator Farm? yes, Casper's, in St. Augustine, Florida

Where's the part about a RULER FARM though? That's what we need. I would pay big bucks to go to a Ruler Farm...

Purchase (ebay) -- "mikeingreensboro" = The Postcard Dude = Michael Blood, Lincolnville, ME -- received 15 February 2025

Happy Valentine's Day

Purchase (etsy) -- "PearlVintageGoods" = Penny Zimmerman-Wills, Illinois -- received February 2014

Measuring blood sugar?

Not with this device. Over the past six months I've been collecting diabetes-related ephemera to donate to a fund-raising auction later this year, and yesterday I received in the email an ebay purchase: a small book with a comb binding, titled "Your Diabetes and How to Live with It," by Floyd L. Rogers, M.D., and Ruth M.  Leverton, Ph.D. (Universisty of Nebraska Press, 1953). Here's the cool thing: the back cover has a RULER printed on it. Why, I don't know. 

I may have to keep this myself, for the ruler collection...

My favorite color

Many of the things in my ruler collection aren't actually rulers; they are other objects, in many formats, that have a ruler theme. Here's a good example: earlier this month I bought a custom order from an etsy seller, who sold me four sets of these beautiful school-themed bookmarks, which normally come with five different clips in five different colors (red apple, blue book, green ruler, yellow pencil, black stapler). She was gracious enough to sell me 20 RULER-themed clips in my favorite color (green).

I love them!

Purchase (etsy; four sets of five) -- "JustAnotherReality" = Brittany Watkins -- received 13 December 2024

Tut, tut

This makes me feel old. After buying this blotter with a ruler on it (the whole reason I bought it), I did some research about Butter-Nut Bread, and found lots of newspaper articles and web sites that discuss the Butternut jingle: "Tut, tut, nothing but, Butternut Bread!" Not anything I remember. In a 2012 article about the closing of a Hostess plant near Cincinnati, which produced Butter-Nut Bread in addition to other Hostess baked goods, many of the displaced workers specifically mentioned fond memories of Butter-Nut bread, a Cincinnati-based bread first sold in the early 1900s.

(To see some examples, do a search for "Tut, tut, nothing but, Butternut Bread!")

Now I have a piece of history.

Purchase (ebay) -- "sds99x" = Steve Sypolt, Wingwood, WV -- received 26 December 2024

Worms

Not an actual ruler, but it fits the Collection Policy just fine: made of paper, and has a ruler theme or image. Barbara Robinson's book My Brother Louis Measures Worms (HarperTrophy, 2005) is pretty funny, too.

Purchase (ebay) -- Collectibles Books and Music LLC, Reno, NV -- received 2 December 2024

Walk or Play

Last week, when I bought this ruler blotter on Ebay, I didn't realize that I already had eight other Kali-sten-iks shoes blotters in the collection. Seven! So now I have nine, and each one is different. The blotters were printed with a blank space for the individual business to print their name and location; this one is from Grossman's Shoes in San Francisco.

Purchase (ebay) -- "rose's postcard store" = Rose LeRoque, Redding, CA -- received 30 November 2024

P.S. - Six of the blotters in the collection--three with orange rulers and three with green rulers--are from The Bootery, 42 West Main Street in Somerville. I had assumed it must be Somerville, Massachusetts (right next door), but it turns out it was Sommerville, New Jersey. That space now has a Thai restaurant called Kuay Tiew. No shoes!

 

 

All Wool and a Yard Wide

This new addition came to the collection thanks to the observant eyes of ephemera dealer (and postcards, trade cards, postal history, etc.) Jose Rodriguez of Cartophilians / Rodriguez Archives LLC, in Cheshire, Connecticut. He can spot a measuring instrument from a mile away. (Just like I can.)

At the far right side of the letterhead on this 1905 business letter is an image of a man measuring a sheep, and the text "ALL WOOL AND A YARD WIDE" THAT IS THE STUFF J.O. BALLARD & CO'S MALONE PANTS ARE MADE OF." Malone Woolen Mills were in Malone, NY, the county seat of Franklin County, New York.

Purchase -- Jose Rodriguez, Cartophilians, Cheshire, CT -- received 23 November 2024

Very different on front and back

This trade card was available to businesses who needed to promote their offerings by printing their contact information on the back, and my collection has many from the same printer (Farmer, Livermore & Co., Providence, Rhode Island). The back promotes Geo. H. Richard's Men's and Boy's One Price Clothing House, at 296 Washington St., Boston.*

(*As of July of this year, that address is the site for the new CharlieCard Store: https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/07/22/new-charliecard-store-opening-july-29-mbta-announces/ )

This card came as a gift from Jim Arsenault, a bookseller++ and fellow board member of the Ephemera Society of America. Thank you, Jim.

Gift -- James E. Arsenault, Arrowsic, ME -- received 21 November 2024

Fisherman's Special RULE-OR-FILE

This new accession is so full of jokes it's not funny. No, wait, it is wicked funny!

Before I revised my collection policy to "paper only," my ruler collection had almost 40 different fish-measure examples, both legitimate fishing tools and fish-measurement jokes. Apparently, people who catch fish like to exaggerate the size of the things they catch?

These two new rulers arrived on Thursday, a gift from my friends Sharon Cruce Pattison and Todd Pattison. Both rulers are the same, and both are in excellent condition. Each one  is an advertisement/give-away for Robert O. Holley hardware and appliances in Pulteney, New York (Steuben County, on the shores of Keuka Lake), but also a nail file, and a Ruler Joke both in text and image: the RULE-OR-FILE says 12 inches but actually measures 5 1/4 inches.

I am very lucky to have such generous friends. (Both extremely talented, too!)

Gift -- Sharon Cruce Pattison and Todd Pattison -- received 21 November 2024