Being a serial/multiple hobbyist means I often have to weigh how much I want to invest into a particular hobby, and for my “collection” hobbies, this can come with a cost of “missed opportunity” per se. Although I would have REALLY liked to have it, I decided not to bid, and missed out on an extremely early piece of Franklin Institute memorabilia last weekend.
In this case, I painfully decided I didn’t want to spend the $$ even the opening bid was asking, although having it for my collection would have been way cool! I did score a few more very cool FI postcards, showing many early interior views of the museum that will be posted in the near future.
All that said…I was able to grab a pic from the Ebay listing to post and enjoy it here anyway. If you were the one that won this, enjoy it, and feel free to comment below if you have more to add to this.
While it was difficult to get a sense of size from the Ebay listing, the above pic is likely a business card. This card was printed at the Franklin Institute “Exhibition of American Manufactures”. which was held in 1874! Apparently the exhibition showed off many local manufacturers, printers, tool companies, lighting fixtures, and other Philadelphia firms.
Many people likely don’t realize that the Franklin Institute actually dates back that far, back to 1824 actually, and it wasn’t until 1934 that they actually moved into the building that it exists in today near the Parkway. You can learn more about the history of the Franklin Institute on their web site.
Below are a couple actual images from the event as Stereographs, taken from this page, which has a little more information about the event. Pics were credited to James Cremer, 1821-1893. This would have been a remarkable event to have seen back then!
There seems to be some articles and other ephemera available about this event, but I’ll have to read up and learn more. Again if you won the ebay listing for the above card, or have more information or pictures to share of the event, please reach out to me either by email or in the comments.