Strange But True: Paper Salesman’s Sample Books – 1995

Back in my 20’s, working at the print shop I often met with a profession that probably doesn’t exist anymore: The traveling paper salesman. There were a few of them that stopped by the shop every week to talk about new papers, take orders and drop off sample books of their wares. We had a shelf dedicated to these sample books to refer to when selling a client on a specific sort of paper, and the paper companies did work hard to make sure the sample books delivered a great impression of their papers. Each sample book was designed by award-winning graphic designers, and each featured a variety of high-end printing techniques to show off what they looked like on the paper, spot varnish, foil-stamping and embossing as well. The really cool thing was that the design companies were given carte blanche when it came to the content of the books, and were allowed to get as abstract and creative as they wanted. Each one was different, and each was sort of like a little art book you’d find at a museum. Usually the designers followed some sort of loose theme, like “engravings of fish” or “inspirational quotes” or whatever, and these books won the designers awards at trade shows which netted a lot of work for them, so they took it pretty seriously. Since specific brand lines of paper often only lasted a season or two (unless you’re “Classic Laid” or “Classic Linen”), we’d have to periodically clear the samples shelf of books for discontinued papers, and those were normally thrown out. I hated to see that waste, though, so I cut out the artwork I liked and saved that – since the books would take up a lot of space. I did save one book pair, though… This is a sample book and a notepad advertising a new recycled paper called “ESSE” made by Gilbert/Mead in 1995. It’s theme was “Strange But True” and consists of strange news clippings printed on the various kinds of “ESSE” paper that were offered. The second book included is a notepad of lined paper, each sheet being a different variant of the textweight versions of “ESSE”. There’s two different watermarks on the “ESSE” sheets, one with the “ESSE” logo, and one that’s a heavy screen-door type pattern. It’s subtle, but the nifty advanced printing “trick” with this book is the opaque white under-printing that makes each news clipping pop off the page. Hey, my hometown represents! :D I wish I’d kept more of these – they were pretty cool, and the chops from them make great letter ephemera, but I didn’t and have only a little pile of it left. Considering the fact that they were disposable sample books, I kind of wonder how many still exist, or were they all tossed out? Probably the latter, because business environments aren’t known for archiving industry ephemera. Too bad, really – it was an age of interesting and creative design in the print industry.