Words: Jason Vanderhill

I’ve been a lifelong collector of all sorts of things from matchbooks to car brochures and beyond. Now I’m going to tell you a trade secret; ebay is a great place to do some fantastic window shopping without ever spending a cent! You just need to be clear about what you are looking for.

When it comes time to search for some nostalgic imagery, I use keywords like rare, vintage, vancouver, and (no offense to sports fans) additional variables like -canuck, -canucks, -grizzly, -grizzlies to subtract the vast pool of sports memorabilia from the mix. On a good day, I’m left with results like these.

All six of these items were spotted on ebay this past year. Readers might be able to pinpoint the era of these items better than I, but I’ll wager a guess that the first item, a souvenier broach made in Czechoslovakia, was made in the 1920s (since Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918). I’ll guess the two luggage tags are from the 1940s. The two window decals came with price tags from Cunningham Drug Store (which closed in 1970), so I’ll guess they’re from the 1960s. And the BC Place button looks to me like something from the 1980s.

It’s quite plain to see, that our aesthetic sensibility has changed over time, and while some things have improved with progress and technology, others have been lost or forgotten. But my point is not that we have forgotten how to make truly great ephemeral works of art. I believe we are making art and craft as great as ever. You just need to know where to look. Follow along, and I will attempt to point some of these out to you.

More from Illustrated Vancouver can be found HERE.