Edith's autograph book and Jean's needlebook
Last weekend I went to one of my favorite antique shows: Antiques on Academy. There is always a super group of people selling antique and vintage finds. I hope the show continues, as the marketing for it leaves much to be desired, despite my best efforts to publicize it. I didn't have a big budget for the show, but I did manage to scout out some lovely things anyway. Like the worn velvet book above; it's an autograph book... and I hadn't seen one like it before, with the lovely, lovely "decorated spaces and lines for sentiment and name." Like this page -- it's blank, as most pages in the book were. The sturdy autograph book held 3 or 4 blank pages and then one of these, then 3 or 4 more blank pages, then one of these, etc. Most of the signatures are done in fountain pen and date from the 1880s. On this page, several members of the same family signed on a pile of cards. I love to read the inscriptions to discover names (it's Edith...