A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Collecting bits of printed paper might seem like an old-fashioned hobby in a digital age. But as Buffy Gorrilla reports, the act of preserving paper seems to be attracting a new generation of collectors.
BUFFY GORRILLA, BYLINE: The Agriculture Hall in Allentown, Pennsylvania, smells like a treasure-filled attic - part musty, part mysterious and full of hidden gems bathed in fluorescent light.
HANNAH SONG: I was able to find a postcard of a street that I always drove in back in New Jersey. So I was like, let me get something that just reminds me of home.
GORRILLA: Hannah Song is 29 and an Allentown Paper Show first-timer.
SONG: It's really exciting. I thought it was going to be a little boring, but I'm actually having a lot of fun.
GORRILLA: If it's printed on paper, it's likely here - comic books, old newspapers, song lyrics or posters. The heart of the show is Postcard Row. People perch on the edge of wooden chairs for hours, searching for a treasure. Fifty-one-year-old Chad Updegrove and his younger brother, Brad, grew up with a father who was a history teacher and a keen collector.
BRAD UPDEGROVE: These are mostly World War I and World War II war bond posters. My father collected this stuff for decades and decades, and he came to this paper show probably ever since it's been in its existence. My brother and I are kind of taking up where he left off.
GORRILLA: The paper show has been happening since 1970. Sean Klutinoty runs the twice-yearly event, which welcomes approximately 170 dealers from more than 25 states.
SEAN KLUTINOTY: Over the last 14 years, what I've been seeing is I'm getting younger and younger dealers. As some of the senior vendors are retiring and moving on, they're being replaced with dealers who have found just the same passion for the history.
GORRILLA: Twenty-two-year-old Sam Davis of Wichita has been collecting Civil War-era memorabilia since high school.
SAM DAVIS: A lot of people really like me just 'cause I'm young. People are really surprised that I'm here and that I buy, like, a lot of this stuff and I'm able to find so much of it.
GORRILLA: Brian Hanley is a buyer and collector of stock and bond certificates from the 1800s to today.
BRIAN HANLEY: Andrew Carnegie's U.S. Steel Corporation. This is a stock certificate.
GORRILLA: Hanley is also on the younger side for a collector.
HANLEY: I always get feedback on - is that I'm one of the youngest people in the room as a 36-year-old, which is, to me, kind of wild.
GORRILLA: Watching the hall fill up with excited paper collectors, it's clear how much old paper is appreciated. But what about fresh collectibles? Lisa Breish and Yudai Kanayama mentioned they are not creating any new ephemera.
LISA BREISH: I don't write letters much anymore. And I'm not a crafter.
YUDAI KANAYAMA: I don't write much, but I talk a lot.
GORRILLA: Hannah Song, on the other hand?
SONG: I love writing letters. I think writing a letter is so much more intimate. When you're just typing something out, you can always click the backspace button and delete it.
GORRILLA: Do you know if your friends save the letters you send them?
SONG: I know they do because I go to their apartments and they have it hanged up, which is so precious to me.
GORRILLA: By the end of the two-day show, 1,300 people had walked through the doors. Sean Klutinoty says dealers and even the security guard commented on this year's younger crowd, so he's excited for what's next.
For NPR News, I'm Buffy Gorrilla in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
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