After having to wait over three weeks for a plumber, any plumber, to call back - let alone come and fix a broken sink pipe, I sat down in dismay to pour over a collection of Rack cards. I started to muse over the messages of a few of them. "No Empire Lasts Forever....especially one that keeps you waiting 5 hours for a repairman."

Max cards is one of the companies that produce advertising postcards today. These cards are given away free on racks in large cities and are, because of the great advertising, very collectible. On this one card Stalin is being hung, and RCN is telling us that no Empire lasts forever because 5 hours is too long to wait for a repairman.

If this is the truth, then America is in big trouble and NH is a long lost cause! England is in worse shape as we had to wait five weeks to get a pipe fixed in my mother-in-law's apartment just outside London. What is this world coming to?

If you listen to our politicians, you will learn that Chinese espionage is different than that of any other country; guess that is why they are a favored nation. We vilify friendly Japan and lionize China, which is dumping - complete with government papers, millions of dollars worth of brand new, made yesterday with slave labor, hundred-year-old Oriental artifacts. If none of this makes sense to you, it just means you're a lot smarter and more honest than politicians. Maybe what this country does need is a good 5 cent cigar !

So what has this to do with ephemera? Do you really care about my plumbing problems or my mother-in- law's? All this builds up to two things: collecting the "Free" or rack cards and the early Art Nouveau and Deco Japanese cards.

If you can't get to NYC and Boston, two of the places these are distributed for free, find a dealer that has them and buy them. The art work is striking, the social commentary is incredible, and the potential of these cards are infinite. One of the best advertising campaigns I have ever seen is for Absolute Vodka where the bottle is incorporated into bodies and landscapes. This advertising is as effective as those "You don't have to be Jewish to Love Levi's" posters in the sixties. The bread was good but seeing everyone of different ethnic groups eating Levi's bread did one good. I haven't seen any of these posters in years but I would love to have a set of the posters on my wall! They certainly beat those silly milk mustaches. The postcards for Absolute are more numerous but are smaller and can be grouped easier than posters. Don't be an age snob and pass up wonderful art because it is new or inexpensive, or heaven forbid, Free!

Remember that years ago Ashile Gorky worked in Boston and nobody wanted to pay money for his work! Look at the prices today! A bit of advice if you are out "racking", which is going from place to place taking the free cards from their racks. Take duplicates to trade or sell but leave a few for the next guy!

So you think Mucha and the French invented Art Nouveau. Take a look at the Nouveau and Deco cards done by the Japanese and you will see the incredible influence the Japanese had on the French. Some of the most beautiful, stylized and unusual of the art done for either of these movements are by the Japanese. Where the Italians excelled around World War II, Japan produced art that was fresh, innovative, and exciting at the turn of the century. The colors are breathtaking and the enhancement with gold and silver, embossing, and fancy borders is high art indeed.

The Asian market is weak right now because of banks, money manipulat- ing, and all the economic inconve- niences that are fed to us from Wall St. This is definitely the time to buy and I will go so far as to predict that as soon as Japan is on its feet again, the rest of the East will do the same shortly after and then the steady flow of these cards out of the county will push the prices up. This is what smart dealers call "dealing in futures". It's not like buying a lottery ticket. You're betting on your knowledge, which is often eye appeal, and the odds are in your favor.

Look for extremely stylized, enhanced cards, and those in which the characters have been "Anglofied". Eurasian models wearing clothes designed by some of Japan's most Europeanized designers - they are very desirable. Another thing is the advertising that had stylized carica- tures of animals, almost like paint brush cartoons, and even Kewpies appear on a few of the cards. Royalty and propaganda like the Russo-Japanese War are highly sought after, and scarce. American cards of the Russo-Japanese war, such as the signing in Portsmouth, NH are fairly plentiful but there are a few rarer items that are of better quality. Unlike the Chinese, that have been stifled by their government, the Japanese have been originators and design leaders. As collectors of oriental art and prints expand their horizons, and as the French Nouveau prices continue to soar out of sight. I think more people will discover the Japanese Nouveau, Deco and Europeanized art.

There will always be those who think of oriental art as beautiful brush strokes, rice paper, bamboo shoots, the great wall, and Mt. Fuji. Chinese art and Japanese art are very different. Nothing stays the same. Metamor- phosis, sometimes for the good - some times for the bad, incorporating different influences, constant borrow- ing and fluctuations.

Art is like cooking, The great chief tastes everything and then creates a recipe he has stolen from someone else, so that the original cook doesn't recognize the usurpation.

Many ephemera and postcard dealers do not stock these cards because of price, and you will have to frequent the more sophisticated dealers and shows, where you will find them in albums rather than with the topogra- phic views in boxes. You will even- tually be able to separate the styles and recognize the work of different artists.

Just to confuse you, the Japanese brought in European artists to do advertising postcards, melding the feel of the occident with the orient.

While you're looking through Japanese cards there were some incredible baseball postcards done when American teams, both college and professional, played in Japan. Yes, even Babe Ruth and his team went over to play, and they signed some of those cards! There are more interesting gems of pop culture of all eras to be found in Japan than in most countries.

Some of the races of early planes against cars are real photo cards and can be quite spectacular. Of course, you'll have to plow through fields of flowers, temples, geisha girls, and Mt. Fuji, to find these rarities but it's worth it, and the others are quite fun to look at. Individually framed and placed on a teak wood stand they are a perfect compliment to display with Netsuke and they fit into nooks and crannies on your wall that the more expensive posters would never fit.

Japanese art is like sushi - you either love it, or you are afraid to try it and never know what you are missing.