Cigar

• foot – the end meant to be lit.
• cigar band – a paper or foil loop that identifies the type and/or brand of cigar. The hobby of collecting cigar bands is known as vitolophily; you can find over 1,000 examples of old cigar bands at the “Up-in-Smoke” Cigar Band Museum.
• wrapper – a spirally-rolled leaf of tobacco.
• head – the end closest to the cigar band that goes in the smoker’s mouth.
• tuck – where the wrapper is folded in to keep itself from unraveling.
• tobacco – dried and fermented bunches of leaves.

Cigarette

• filter – a cellulose tube not filled with tobacco meant to lower the amount of tar and other unwanted particles from entering the lungs. Invented in the mid-1920s. By the 1960s, the majority of cigarettes had filters, though even today you can still buy unfiltered ones.
• foot – the end that goes in your mouth. On a fully-smoked cigarette, this is known as the butt.
• band – similar to a cigar band but usually printed right on the cigarette paper. Can have the logo or just a simple design.
• paper – a combustible tube-shaped wrapper to hold the tobacco.
• tobacco – shredded tobacco leaves, tobacco by-products, and other additives.

Pipe

• bit or mouthpiece – where one puts his or her mouth.
• stem – the part that joins the shank with the bit or mouthpiece.
• saddle – a flattened part for easier gripping.
• shank – where the mortise on the bowl connects with the tenon on the stem.
• shape – the style of curve and other attributes. Here is a great chart of various pipe shapes.
• bowl – part used to hold the tobacco. The interior hollow area is known as the chamber. Unsmoked tobacco in the bottom of the bowl after smoking is called dottle.
• lunt – another name for pipe smoke.

Matchbook

• cover – folded paper or cardboard piece to hold the matches. Frequently contains advertising or logos on the outside. The abrasive striking surface, or friction strip, used to light the matches is on the back cover. The hobby of collecting matchbook covers is known as phillumeny.
• saddle – the area between the front and back of the cover.
• head – the part of the match that is lit.
• matchstick – the stem of a match.
• front flap – the bit of the cover tucked inside to hold the matches.
• staple – used to secure the matchsticks between the cover and the front flap.
• score – the crease to form the front flap.

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Parts of a table

Tables are a type of furniture which have innumerable variations, types and styles. Nonetheless, some basic parts show up in the majority of tables, especially the kinds which find their way onto the theatrical stage. Knowing the names of these parts is helpful for facilitating communication between designers, artisans and other members of the team; if the set designer asks for the apron to be smaller, you want to know which part you should change. What follows is some quick definitions of the parts in the illustration above.

top – the flat surface of a table

apron, skirt or frieze – the under-framing which connects the legs to the top

leg – the main vertical piece which supports the top and raises it off the floor

knee – the upper portion of the leg

foot – the bottom part of the leg which touches the floor. A table may have completely straight legs with no distinct knee or foot.

drop leaf – a portion of the top which overextends the apron and can be hinged down to take up less space when not in use

stretcher – cross pieces which connect the legs to add strength and stability. Some common configurations of stretchers include the H stretcher, X stretcher, and box stretcher.

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Diagram of the parts of a book

• text block – Everything between the covers.
• front flap – The section of the dust jacket on the front of the book which is folded so it sits inside the cover.
• endleaves – Two or more leaves at the front and back between the cover and the text block.
• fore edge – The side of the book opposite the spine.
• leaf – A single sheet of paper is a leaf, and each side is a page. The front page is known as the Obverse or Recto, while the back page is the Reverse or Verso.
• gatherings – A group of leaves formed by folding a single sheet of paper. The text block is made of a series of gatherings.
• headband – The narrow cloth band on the top and bottom of the spine. In hand-sewn books, it is functional and adds strength, in machine-bound books it is decorative.
• cover/case – Whatever covers the text block. It consists of the cover panels and cover spine.
• back flap – Like the front flap, but in the back.
• dust jacket – Books used to have these to protect the covers. Of course that was before they had dust repellent paper.
• front face – The front section of the dust jacket. The portion of the cover underneath is the front cover panel.
• joint – Where the cover panels meet the cover spine.
• spine – The back part of the cover where the text block is attached. It’s what you see when books are on a bookcase.
• back face – The back section of the dust jacket. The portion of the cover underneath is the back cover panel.
• head – The top of the book
• tail – The bottom of the book

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Accident Insurance Ticket uploaded by PaperScraps

Ephemera can be some of the hardest props to research and produce accurately, but thanks to the falling prices of bandwidth, storage, and digitization technologies, we see more and more scanned images of ephemera online everyday. It can be daunting to go through all the galleries and collections, and search engines are still less than ideal for finding the perfect image. Here are some sites I’ve discovered to help aid your search for the minor transient documents of everyday life. A lot of sites post a ton of links to other sites, but it can be frustrating as many places do not post images online, their images are unusable, or the navigation and search are just too complex and esoteric to use. Remember to search my blog in case you don’t see one of your favorite sites listed; I may have listed it in an earlier article.

The Ephemera Network has a lot of images uploaded by users. Because it is a community, there is also plenty of discussions and interaction concerning other places to track down ephemera. If you are a die-hard fan, you can even join in and share your interests or ask questions with other members.

The Ephemera Society of America has some nice links to online exhibitions displayed elsewhere on the web.

The Ephemera Catalog has a very large and very varied selection of ephemera for sale. The great thing about sites that sell ephemera is that they offer high-quality scans to entice buyers. The site also has a fantastic selection of ephemera links which should give you a few hours of entertainment.

Quadrille Ephemera shows a rotating selection of what they offer for sale. The shop specializes in more hand-written and personal ephemera, like invitations, checks and holiday cards.

Scott J. Winslow specializes in selling American historical memorabilia, mostly from the nineteenth century. The images on the site are pretty high-resolution.

Sheaff: ephemera has a lot of great images in a variety of interesting categories. Be sure to check out the “links” on this site; you’ll never leave the internet.

Beer Labels has nearly 5000 beer labels. The images on the website are watermarked, but they say they can email higher-resolution files without watermarks.

This huge collection of Wine Labels is organized by subject as well as brand.

The Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum has documents, stocks and bonds, stamps, and other ephemera related to railroads.

The Ad*Access Project has over 7000 American and Canadian advertisements from 1911-1955.

A Nation of Shopkeepers is a collection of trade ephemera from 1654 to 1860. Check it out if you need business-related items from old-timey Britain.

Scrapbooks are great because they preserve many types of ephemera of lesser importance and pedigree that would normally be passed-on by collectors, but are nonetheless vital to adding detail to the world of the play. Heritage Scrapbooks has images from 21 scrapbooks of various ages. You can also check out Marion’s Scrapbook, from a young woman during her college years of 1913-1917.

If you’re interested in medical and surgical imagery, you can browse several thousand images at the History of Medicine.

I like this collection of holy cards left in books in the Ireland Library collection.

Arms, crests and monograms began to be used on stationary in England in the 1840s. They replaced the wax seal in many cases, which is oh-so-popular as a theatrical prop device. For the prop-maker obsessed with utmost historical accuracy, you can browse crests organized by topic to add to the stationary in your show.

Like stamps? Who doesn’t like stamps? Though images of stamps aren’t terribly difficult to search for, you can save time with this comprehensive index of stamps from around the world. Browse by country or topic and narrow your search by year.

Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders is an interesting collection; in 18th and 19th century Britain, broadsides were sold at public executions with an account of the crime or description of the criminal. They’re like an old-timey (and more gruesome) version of a program at a sporting event.

The Brooklyn Public Library has an interesting collection of ephemera related to the history of Brooklyn.

Likewise, the Kentuckiana digital library has paper stuffs related to old Kentucky.

Similarly, the Roscommon Historical Research site has ephemera from County Roscommon in Ireland. They do not have many examples online, and the pictures are too small to print directly, but they have such a great range of items that are often overlooked at other sites.

If you are interested in learning more about ephemera rather than merely looking at it, the articles at the Ephemera Society of America delve into the histories of all sorts of fascinating categories and subcategories of printed paper materials.

As always, one of my favorite sources for ephemera is Flickr. Do you have any favorite sites or sources? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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The WeWilliams Library has a PDF of a book called File Filosophy available for free reading and downloading. In this 40 page pamphlet, they define some of the terminology of files (as well as rasps and burrs) and describe how they are made. The majority of the book shows how to use files in a variety of circumstances.

So when you get a chance, give this a read and “file” the information away for later use.

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Playground equipment at the entrance of Elephant's Trunk

Faye Armon and I headed up to Elephant’s Trunk this past weekend. It’s one of the largest flea markets in New England, and only about 2 hours north of New York City.

It runs only on Sundays from April until November, 7am-2pm. They claim it takes up 55 acres; maybe that’s true if you count the parking lot. Regardless, it took us all day to walk past every single booth at least once.

I saw Americana, ephemera, steampunk treasures, baubles, furniture from around the world, and more than a few things where I had to stop because I didn’t know such a thing had existed. The prices ranged from thousands of dollars for pristine antique furniture, to tables filled with sundry items for a dollar each.

We brought a van along which we filled with potential props for both Merchant of Venice and Winter’s Tale. Next time I think I’ll bring a rolling cart as well, as the carts that are available for borrowing there are so rusted they’re nearly immovable.

Collection of wares for sale

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That’s why 100K Garages is such an intriguing concept. Basically it is a loose network of shops around the world with CNC routers of various capabilities. You submit the guidelines of what you need built, and the shops bid on it. You pick a bid you like, the shop makes your pieces, and mails it to you. Prop done!

I have not had an opportunity to give this site a test run yet. If anyone out there has, let us know. We’d love to hear about it.

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Here is a pretty sweet timeline of Nokia phones over the past three decades:

Nokia cellphones, 1982-2010

I had a Nokia cellphone for about three years. Still have it, in fact.

Here’s a similar timeline which Lego put out on the fiftieth anniversary of the Lego brick in 2008:

Lego brick timeline

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World Map by J. Blaeu, 1664

Who doesn’t love old maps? Maybe you don’t love them so much that you made your wedding invitations in the style of an old map (like my wife and I did). But maps pop up in plays all the time. Whether you need a large wall map for King Lear, or a small battlefield map for Arms and the Man, here are some sites that will help you find what you need.

David Rumsey Map Collection – Over 22,000 maps, focusing on 18th and 19th century North and South America, though other continents and time periods are available.

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection – Links to hundreds of maps on other sites, as well as a small collection of its own historical maps.

Wikimedia Commons Old Maps – Dozens of maps categorized by location.

World Digital Library Maps – Over 300 high-quality scans of original historical maps (browse the rest of the site for lots of other historical artifacts).

Genmaps – Old maps of England, Wales and Scotland, navigable by county.

National Maritime Museum- Over 1700 historical sea charts and maps from the medieval period to the present.

Library of Congress – Some of their map collections are available online, though the navigation is horrendous.

National Library of Scotland – Over 20000 historical maps of Scotland available.

The 1895 U.S. Atlas – From Rand McNally.

Holy Land Maps – Maps of Judea, Palestine and Israel at the University of Florida.

Stuckenberg Map Collection – Gettysburg College’s online collection of mostly United States maps.

Antique Atlas – A site which sells old maps, currently offering images of over 900 of them.

Hargrett Library Collection -Over 1000 historical map images in another difficult to navigate format.

Historic Cities – Offers a number of old maps from a number of cities throughout the world (mostly Europe).

Reinhold Berg Antique Map Shop – Sells prints of the numerous historical maps on their site.

Old Map Gallery – Another site selling maps with many images.

If you still haven’t found enough map porn, you can peruse larger lists of sites at Odden’s Bookmarks. The site is a little out of date, so many of the sites are no longer available.

That being said, I whole-heartily subscribe to what “green” should mean. We can’t pretend that things disappear when you put them in the garbage, and you have to understand that everything comes from somewhere else; how it is made (or mined, or harvested, etc.) has a real impact on people’s lives.

Every bit of lumber we use means less trees somewhere else. In some cases, they come from a place where trees are replanted to replace the ones taken, and a whole group of people are able to make a living for their families. In other cases, entire ecosystems are destroyed as forests are removed, and the native people who live there are pushed aside and left with nothing to sustain them. This is true of all materials. Being green is not some feel-good philosophy to make animals smile. Choosing greener products is a declaration that the materials you buy for making props are less important than razing a village and giving cancer to children.

As props people, we are already predisposed to being green. We collect and reuse things from the past that were destined for the dumpster. We keep our budgets down by trolling thrift stores, eBay, and Craigslist. We let others borrow, rent and buy the items we’ve accumulated. We are largely pack-rats; the only reason we get rid of things is because we physically run out of room to store it in our already overstuffed storage areas.

Being green is also safer. If a product releases toxic chemicals when being used, chances are it also damages the environment in its creation. A shop which chooses less-toxic alternatives in its materials and supplies, which provides proper safety equipment and ventilation, and which is aware of the affects of what it uses (by studying and maintaining its MSDS collection) is already greener than a shop which doesn’t.

For more practical tips and additional information about green theater, you can explore the following links. None of them have to do with props specifically, but combining the information on scenery, costumes, and offices will give you a good start.

• Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company has a fairly comprehensive ecological ranking of the various materials we use in theatre. It grades them on a scale of 0-4, with 4 being the safest and most sustainable and 0 being the most toxic and wasteful.
• Check out the 50 things you can do towards being a green theater. Some suggestions are great – make fabric mock-ups with thrift store sheets rather than new muslin. Others are somewhat counter-intuitive – print brochures to let the public know what you’re doing.
• The Broadway Green Alliance also has a list of better practices for the theatre professional.
• I briefly mentioned the ecoTheater blog last year in a post about careers in technical theater. Though updates there have slowed down a bit, it’s still a great jumping off point for a cornucopia of other sites and information about sustainable theater practices.

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