While Winter Carnival is a weekend full of memories, those seeking more tangible souvenirs can hunt beyond Hanover for a variety of collectibles from Carnivals past.
Some of the most popular and expensive Winter Carnival souvenirs are the posters that are created to commemorate the weekend each year. Posters from earlier Carnivals can be quite valuable and are sold everywhere from galleries and auction houses to eBay.
Poster prices vary widely depending on their year and condition. Older posters that are in good condition can typically go for around $2,000 at auction houses, although this number can fluctuate. One 1947 Carnival poster, for example, sold for $4,600 at auction last year.
One week before this year's Carnival, there were 22 original posters for auction on eBay. The starting bids on these posters ranged from $29.95 all the way up to $1,000.
For students who want to begin a collection of more modestly priced collectibles, there have been sales on campus of inexpensive Carnival posters from the past several years. In addition, the poster from this year's Carnival will be on sale in Thayer Dining Hall and at the Dartmouth Co-op.
Several older posters are framed on the walls in both Thayer and the Collis Center.
"During my freshman year I noticed the old Winter Carnival posters that line the stairway to the top floors of Thayer and Collis and decided that I'd like to start collecting," Ryan Payne '06 said.
Rauner Special Collections Library contains a significant number of other interesting Winter Carnival items. These items are not on permanent display but are available upon request to interested parties.
"Every year we get some interest [in Carnival-related items] around Winter Carnival time," archives specialist Barbara Krieger said.
One unique item in the Rauner collection is the Queen of Snows crown, which was bestowed upon one female visitor to campus each Carnival from 1923 to 1973. The small crown features five silver snowflakes and a capital D in the middle of the center snowflake.
Another unique item in the collection is a plastic bag that held snow from the snow sculpture of 1987. The 47.5-foot sculpture was inducted into the Guinness Book of World Records that year as the world's largest snowman, but the record has since been broken.
There are various ephemera, or paper items, in the collection as well, including newspaper and magazine articles, souvenir programs, pictorial books and tickets to various events.
In one of the articles in the collection, a 1947 copy of Sport magazine, Harold Kaese writes about Winter Carnival in a passage that still holds true today:
"The annual Dartmouth Winter Carnival ... is at once a social event, an athletic meet and a beauty contest," Kaese wrote. "As a combination ice circus, party paradise and Mardi Gras of the Northland, the Winter Carnival is the frosting on the cake of college life in Hanover, New Hampshire.
