This is a post about railway related ephemera. These things aren’t strictly strictly railway ephemera. They weren’t produced by, or behalf of, railway companies. However, they do show the symbolic power of the railway engine as a trademark or brand.
I’ve got a small matchbox label collection. I love the slightly primitive quality of art direction and the cheap-and-cheerful production values. These come from a mixed album I just purchased at auction. There are tractor images, Swiss road safety labels and a nice lot of UK pub and beer typo lables.
Karen, my wife and fellow collector (we met looking at the same thing), was a bit anxious about more bits of paper in the house. However, even she was forced to admit that the album had a few interesting things in!