Product Details

New Year's Day in Pasadena, the early 1950s. This little time capsule of California paper carries you straight back to the roses, the floats, and the whole sun-washed pageantry of midcentury Southern California. Five pieces, one lovely armful of nostalgia. At the heart of it is the 1952 Rose Parade pair. The Tournament of Roses Pictorial puts Queen Nancy Thorne front and center in her tiara and a tumble of red roses, while the matching Official Program, the 63rd Annual, leads with that classic flag-and-horseback-bugler cover. Together they are a proper 1952 Rose Parade set, the kind of thing a California collector or a Rose Bowl fan gets genuinely excited about. Add the Knott's Berry Farm Ghost Town booklet from Buena Park, all stagecoaches and Old West charm, and a vintage ice-revue program with a glamorous plumed skater on the cover, and you have a little tour of where everybody went for a good time back then. Rounding it out is an original 1953 Chesterfield magazine ad, the deeply of-its-era kind with a beaming spokesman and a straight face about cigarettes, included as a fun period bonus. This is a buy-it-once lot for the paper collector, the Californiana hunter, the Rose Parade devotee, or anyone who loves the look of vintage ephemera framed on a wall or tucked in a scrapbook. A whole era, gathered and ready to go home together.