By Sandy Dale    I have to say that when they told me it was my turn to write the blog thingy for the Florence page in the Mountain States Collector, I was at a loss for words. Not at all like me. Anyone who knows me here in Florence will tell you I suffer from severe verbosity. But what was […]

   V-E Day was observed on May 8, 1945, in Great Britain, Western Europe, the United States and Australia, and on May 9 in the Soviet Union and New Zealand. V-E Day commemorates the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allied forces in 1945, ending World War II in Europe.    For just over five years and eight months a war […]

By Mike Pearce    In the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries, thousands of brass bands dotted the American landscape. Those ensembles played music assembled in march size folios and band books. As those band books now find their way into auctions from attics and basements, they become attractive collectibles for a select number of band history collectors and performers. By […]

By Maureen Timm    In 1680 an Irishman named Robert Boyle discovered that if you rubbed phosphorus and sulphur together they would instantly burst into flames. He discovered the principle that was the precursor of the modern match. The next discovery was by an Englishman. In 1827 a pharmacist called John Walker produced “Sulphuretted Peroxide Strikeables,” which were a yard long […]