Bibliophemera

Bookplates are gaining significant traction with regard to my bibliophemera collecting interests. Last week, I went around the house to the various rooms where I have old books shelved and scanned all the inside covers and first few pages for bookplates. They're not alway affixed to the front endpapers. Some wind up on the half-title page or the facing blank page. And I found a pretty good batch right under my nose. It was exciting to open up old, familiar books as if I'd never seen them before and find old bookplates I didn't know were there. At a few antique shops over the weekend, I browsed for older books stuffed away in the nooks and crannies more for decoration it seemed than anything else. And again I found a few intriguing bookplates. I bought the books. I've been researching and cataloging my new collection and will display a few here. This is from one of the antique shop finds over the weekend. Waldron of what... Gent? Kent? The Waldron family shield or crest ...

So demands a label found in a 1938 children's book from a Minneapolis school library. What would you call this piece of ephemera? Not a book label, I wouldn't think. That denotes ownership. It was pasted in like a label or bookplate. I guess it just falls under miscellaneous labels or something to that effect. I'm new to collecting bookplates and labels, but have encountered many over the years browsing and collecting books. I've never see one like this. And I wonder how many kids saw this label, put the book back down, and ran to wash their hands before proceeding? Not much information on this label to determine its origin. The book's publication date helps place it circa 1938 or later. The cartoonish figures are reminiscent of the Tin Man from the film, The Wizard of Oz , which premiered in 1939. If that likeness was "borrowed" to connect with the kids, the labels would have been printed around 1939 or 1940. There is a copyright mark and an indicator tha...