Random Bits of Vintage Ephemera

December 24, 2010 11:48 AM

Flickr user ElectroSpark collects and shares “random bits of vintage ephemera from mid-century vacationers,” with many in the form of charming round-cornered Kodachromes. In particular, his Fairs & Expos set with its collection of holiday snapshots from Brussels ’58, New York ’64 and Expo ’67 in Montreal, are all from a by-gone era. The collection includes both vintage graphics and photos.
posted by netbros (5 comments total)

hello there new font of primary source material.
posted by The Whelk at 11:50 AM on December 24, 2010

This is a great, great find; thank you so much.

I find it interesting as I look at these snapshots that they look precisely like what I believe I remember of the fairs themselves. But how can that be? Certainly, the colors had to have been truer and more vivid in real life, wouldn't you think? But I was 4 and 5 and 7 in those years, so maybe what I remember is actually the Kodachrome-captured version, not the places themselves...

I had my own store of blurry, three-foot-from-ground-level perspectives of Expo '67, taken with the Kodak 126 camera I got for my 7th birthday. I should try to find them...
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 12:47 PM on December 24, 2010

Drive-In Mike also traffics in some cool stuff like this.
posted by milkrate at 8:38 PM on December 24, 2010

I can't believe how good these pictures look. Some of these look like they were taken yesterday.
posted by gc at 10:17 PM on December 24, 2010

Fascinating that newer generations (as I'm assuming Electrospark is... without really knowing) are seeing the clean design beauty of things, clothes, and views, of those times. Memory, or even a perceived memory (ie. nostalgia for things we did not experience) is a funny thing.

I was around in '67, and have the same phenomenon that OneMonkeysUncle experiences: those seem like the colors. Maybe for the most part, they were ....recognizing we have capabilities now to mass produce very intense colors (in clothes, cars, architectural materials). The further back you go in history the "duller" colors become, and the more common muted colors were in daily existence. Go back far enough, and it's all pretty brown.

These photos do have a clean beauty though! Makes it seem life had a clean beauty then too... but that's illusion.
posted by ecorrocio at 7:09 PM on December 25, 2010