Wasn’t there a thread just like this kinda recently?

*shrugs* I don’t know. I just thought this could be fun. Break out your digital camera and show of your typographic treasures :)

> Break out your digital camera and show of your typographic treasures :)

Make sure you have adequate insurance - the typo-burglars may be reading this ;-)

Japanese Lucky Cats and Dominican cigar box.

Ha! Haley those are great :) Lot of personality and I love the bright cheerful colors. What do the Japanese symbols stand for on the cats?

Doug, do you mean the Japanese words on the cats?

The word, ‘祝’, on the collar of the right cat means ‘to congratulate’, ‘to wish’ or ‘to pray’ and the word, ‘開運’, on the legs of the right cat means ‘to have a better luck’. ‘開’ means ‘open’, and ‘運’ means ‘luck’.

The cat on the right is a good-luck charm.

The word, ‘千万両’, on the legs of the left cat means ten million ryo’s (‘ryo’ is an old Japanese currency). In other words, it means a great deal of money.

The cat on the left is an amulet which gives you money.

I have several collections which, now that you mention it, do seem to contain quite a bit of type. A lot of old vinyl, magazines, postcards, printed ephemera etc. For a while (early 1970s), I collected cigarette packages and cigarette cards.
This animation shows the evolution of the British Park Drive 10-pack from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Akira, thank you for that explanation on the cats. Nick that’s awesome stuff! I’ve heard of cigarette cards before. My mom is a walking talking wealth of antique knowledge. I probably heard about them from her. Do you have any photos of your card collection?

This is great!

Doug, you’re welcome.

But I read a word by mistake.

The word on the collar of the right cat might not be ‘祝’. It could be ‘福’ that means happiness. The letter is so distorted that I had a error. Sorry.

An A5-sized postcard in one of the windows at my workplace. A deliberate misspelling of “Shut up” by Swedish artist elis eriksson.

Akira, thanks for the info on the cats. I got a cat as a house-warming gift and displayed it in my kitchen. Now I realize it’s a money-making cat. So I moved it to my office.

Here’s a Wills card from c.1913.
Probably from a Wild Woodbine package.
1 3/8” wide.

Nick: Oh, how wonderful cards, and also the packaging development is a pleasure to see ... please don’t show us more ... it’s addictive stuff ... Where are these cards from? Have they been in the cigarette packages for use of collecting them?

Nick, you’d probably enjoy this book I designed

http://www.amazon.com/Smoke-Gets-Your-Eyes-Cigarette/dp/0789206404/ref=s...

fredo, what is the significance of the misspelling? What an awesome view from that window. What kind of work do you do?

Nick those are awesome cards. I did a little researching on cigarette cards and found this interesting tidbit on the Wikipedia site:

“One notable cigarette card is the example of Honus Wagner from the American Tobacco Company’s T206 set. Sometimes referred to as the Holy Grail one such example sold for over $2 million.”

I own the graver that Christian Paput, last punchcutter of the Imprimerie nationale, is shown holding in this photograph. It lives on my desk, next to my cricket ball.

- what is the significance of the misspelling?

elis died last year, at 99 years of age, angry until the end. He said he had been born three times as an artist. I’m most familiar with his two last incarnations, characterized by his both childish and aggressive onomatopoetic works, of which this is one. The significance is perhaps better explained by Karl Nyberg, who wrote this for an exhibition at the Modern Museum in Stockholm:

His classic phrase “HÅLL TJEFTEN” (SHUT YOUR GAB!) incites revolt and represents a refusal to submit to repressive norms, both linguistic and social. A peculiar writing style is one of the most characteristic features of Eriksson’s art. By making his own dyslexia a distinctive and individual form of expression, he turns accepted values on their head. What is normally seen as a restriction becomes instead his strength.

More pictures of his work here and the rest of the quoted text here.

Let’s just say that everytime I look at it I can feel a tiny bit subversive when everything I do is not.

- What an awesome view from that window. What kind of work do you do?

I’m a (typo)graphic designer, and as the myth goes, we must have inspiring work environments to be “creative”.