1)  Price Guide For Rare & Historic Newspapers?
2)  Storage & Display Options For Colonial, Civil War & 20th Century Newspapers?
3)  Reference Books On The History Of Old Newspapers?
4) A Club Of Collectors Of Old Newspapers?

Collecting rare & early newspapers from the colonial era through the Civil War & 20th century is a fun & fascinating hobby, but questions often arise: Is their a price guide, or a club of collectors? What storage & display options are recommended for the old newspaper hobbyist? How about reference material on the hobby?

1) Being a relatively unknown hobby has its advantages, primarily in that prices for historic newspapers are very low in comparision to like material in the rare book, autograph, manuscript, coin, & other history-related hobbies. Low demand is primarly the reason. The downside is that little material can be found about the hobby, including a price guide.

        One was created over ten years ago but it is woefully out of date. A limited price guide, which we edit, can be found in Warman's Americana & Collectibles, revised every year or so.

        The very best price guide with current prices would be our website, with a small sampling viewable on our eBay Store:  History's Newsstand sponsored by Rare Newspapers

Our full website of rare newspapers includes over 10,000 rare newspapers and old newspapers searchable by date, key word, or title.

2) Not being able to find appropriate archival storage & display material easily, we make in-house Protective Folders, the most popular item for storage of old newspapers, custom sized to the 8 most typical sizes of old newspapers & magazines.  We have two formats of folders available, viewable on our eBay Store:  Protective Folders

       We also offer Newspaper Presentation Cases and Deluxe Portfolios which are found on our eBay Store:  Presentation Cases and Deluxe Portfolios

3) The relative newness of the hobby also limited the amount of reference material available to the hobbyist. One of the best books written which encompasses the history of newspaper publishing is From Quill to Computer by Robert Karolovitz, which I highly recommend. It is a well-illustrated & very readable book. Three indispensible reference works for the serious collector are:

       * HISTORY & BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, by Clarence Brigham. This is a two volume set which lists every newspaper published in America up to 1820, with a brief history of each, listed by state, city, and title. It also includes known holdings which give a great indication of rarity.

        * UNION LIST OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, by Winifred Gregory, subtitled: A Union List of Files Available In The United States & Canada. It picks up in 1821 where Brigham left off, and extends through the year 1936. It lists all known newspapers published in this time period along with their dates of publication with known holdings by various institutions, but lacks the history of the titles found in Brigham.

        * UNION LIST OF SERIALS IN LIBRARIES OF THE UNITED STATES & CANADA, edited by Edna Brown Titus. This is an exhaustive 5 volume effort listing both newspapers and magazines, includes many foreign titles as well, and lists each alphabetically by title. It includes known holdings and the dates of publication.

4) Given the relatively small number of serious collections in the United States, which I estimate at less than 2000, several attempts at maintaining a club or society of collectors have failed due to lack of membership. Previous efforts produced several nice monthly or quarterly newsletters but alas, none exist today.