~ Early Web Links ~

The Busy Beaver Button Museum is an online and physical museum in Chicago dedicated to cataloguing over 9,000 pin-back buttons as windows into American cultural history, from political campaigns to advertising and pop culture. With collections browsable by category and decade, special exhibits, and even a Guinness World Record, it is a genuinely fascinating archive for anyone interested in ephemera and material history.

The Australian Postcard Society Inc. is an Adelaide-based club founded in 2009 for enthusiasts who collect and study postcards, affiliated with the South Australian Philatelic Council. The site offers membership information, meeting schedules, research articles, book reviews, a photo gallery, and archived issues of the club's quarterly magazine.

VHS Warehouse is a retro-themed personal site on Neocities dedicated to the world of VHS tapes and home video culture. Visitors can expect a nostalgic dive into physical media collecting, old-school video aesthetics, and the charm of the videocassette era.

Gerry Fortin's comprehensive web-book covers Liberty Seated Dime die varieties from 1837 to 1891, with detailed documentation of die states, rarity estimates, pricing guides, and exceptional photography built from decades of numismatic research. Collectors will find an exhaustive reference for attributing varieties including shattered dies, misplaced dates, doubled dies, and repunched dates, making it an indispensable tool for anyone serious about this 19th-century U.S. coin series.

Toastermuseum.com, run by Jens Veerbeck, bills itself as the world's largest online toaster exhibition, showcasing a remarkable personal collection of antique and vintage toasters from brands like General Electric, Edison, AEG, and the rare Toast-O-Lator. Visitors can browse the full collection, learn about extraordinarily valuable specimens, and get a sense of what drives someone to amass hundreds of these humble kitchen appliances.

Robert Fowler's comprehensive guide to collecting award medals from American and European World's Fairs and Expositions, covering events from the 1851 Great Exhibition in London through the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. Each exposition gets its own detailed page featuring digital images of the medals, descriptions of design elements, types of awards given, and rich historical context that makes this a gem for numismatic enthusiasts.

Penn Minerals is a dedicated resource for rock and mineral collectors in Pennsylvania, featuring galleries of classic PA minerals, a multi-volume publication called MATRIX Magazine, museum pages, and guides to productive collecting sites. The site also highlights remarkable finds like the Rebersburg Fulgurite, one of the largest ever discovered in Pennsylvania, making it a treasure trove for serious rockhounds.

Coins and Canada is a comprehensive bilingual reference covering Canadian coins, banknotes, tokens, and medals, with price guides, grading information, error and variety documentation, and auction results dating back to 2005. Numismatists will find an extensive catalog spanning provincial coins, Bank of Canada notes, colonial tokens, and even foreign country issues, making it an essential research tool for Canadian currency collectors.

CustomKnives.com was the premier destination for handmade and Damascus knife collecting, operated by A.T. Barr since 1997, featuring listings from dozens of renowned knifemakers along with fine handle materials, engraving, and scrimshaw work. The site served as a marketplace and resource for collectors, with sections for fixed blades, recently sold knives, and detailed maker profiles before the domain was sold to BladeHQ in 2011.

RailroadData.com is one of the oldest and largest railroad link directories on the web, hand-curated by editor Bob Harbison since 1996 with over 4,500 verified links organized into categories covering passenger trains, freight, tourist railroads, railcams, and model railroading. Railfans and professional railroaders alike will find it an invaluable gateway to train-related websites from around the world, complete with a search engine, viewer ratings, and hit counters.