Find Family History in Antique Ads and Ephemera "Customers look for family connections through our antique ads and paper ephemera products," says Linda Heberling, owner of Yesterdays Jewels, an online antiques and collectibles webstore.
News-Antique.com - Apr 01,2009 - Northeastern PA - April 1, 2009 -
"The good fellow mentioned in this ad was my great-great-granddaddy," wrote the customer.
"It's always great when customers let us know that they connected with their family history through our products," says Linda Heberling, owner of Yesterdays Jewels, an online antique and collectibles treasure trove that carries a wide range of items but specializes in antique advertisements and vintage costume jewelry.
"Our most popular American antique ads, dating between 1880 and 1910, document important advances in our national history of industry and commerce. It was a time of "firsts"--newly patented washing machines, telephones, automobiles, farm equipment, heaters and boilers, construction products, building hardware, pharmaceutical products and much more. Many names are well known today, but some were small businesses, craftsmen and independent entrepreneurs exercising their creativity and ingenuity in a wide open market and a time of expansion. Customers browsing our antique ads are often delighted to find an advertised business or product that was developed by their great-uncle, their grandfather or even their great-great grandfather," says the owner.
Yesterdays Jewels also carries general paper and ephemera. Wishing you still had those old family letters, bills of lading, receipts, letterheads, trade cards, and family memorabilia? One customer found over $800 worth of family history at Yesterdays Jewels--a find that he said was 'priceless' to him. One special item that he added to his order was a 1763 land deed signed by Thomas Prather, a French-Indian War hero who fought for this country's freedom at the same time as George Washington, and who now has a memorial fort named after him.
Maybe you want to recapture those old family trips and vacations? A few clicks on the Yesterdays Jewels website will lead you to hundreds of postcards produced around the turn of the last century, including RPPCs, royalty postcards (one with a real photo of Queen Victoria postmarked just days after her funeral), ocean liner postcards, seasonal postcards, and international travel and cityscape postcards. Some have never been used. Many customers purchase them to have visual reminders of long-ago events they participated in or places they visited, or because a family member created the artwork for the postcards.
Heberling assures the reader that even though many of her antique advertisements and paper items are over 100 years old, most are in good to excellent condition. She recommends framing them or slipping them into your family keepsake book to preserve them for the next generation.
Yesterdays Jewels has been online since 2003 and assures respectful, responsible, and reliable service. The owner maintains a Customer Wants to Buy list if you don't find what you are looking for and will contact you if she comes across one of your family members in her ads.
