Business Papers Through the Decades

At some point, I hauled home a box full of possibly useful paper from among my dad's stuff. A lot of it is regular lined paper, quadrille sheets, or ledger paper. But there are a few particular business pieces in there that are especially interesting and that show some design variations that happened over the decades of the 20th century.

The first is from the 1920s: the title page from a Standard B&P Blank Book:


The book has 300 lined pages, about 7.5x9.5" inches, and a Smyth-sewn binding. It would make a great journal. I gather that B&P stands for Boorum & Pease, and these books are still in production. An equivalent new book to the one in my hands sells for about $122, though it looks like you could get used ones for a lot less on Ebay. It's acid-free, lays flat for writing, and the binding means no one can tamper with the pages without it being obvious.

The second piece is the cover from a packet of carbon paper:


I would say this design also dates from the 1920s or maybe the 1930s, based on the logo design, but it was printed in the 1960s because Smith Corona changed its name to SCM in 1962 and started using that slanted bar logo then. There's not a lot of information available about Miller Line carbon paper, and I didn't see any images that look like this specific piece (this is the closest). The Miller Line (which "is superfine," by the way, as its slogan goes) appears to have been better known for its typewriter ribbons, which came in metal tins. They also made eraser shields (remember those!).

The next item was made some time during World War II:


This partial-page IBM stationery is 8.5" wide by 7" tall and I wonder if it's that odd size because of war-time paper shortages? I derive my dating from the line of text at the bottom, which reads "INVEST IN UNITED STATES WAR SAVINGS BONDS AND STAMPS." It uses one of the company's pre-Paul Rand logos, and while most of the type is set in Futura, the line near the bottom that gives the general address in New York City is set in Kabel. The red type near the top is the Endicott address: Endicott is where IBM was founded.

Overall, the design of this stationery is kind of a mess. Not much thought went into it. IBM took quite a leap in the 1950s when it began working with designer Paul Rand. My dad happened to have this folder of carbon paper, designed by Rand in the early 1960s, just after the new IBM logo was launched but before it got its stripes:


One person on Etsy seems to think this package is worth $300. Whew. Glad I didn't throw it away.

The Rand-designed cover is a startling departure from the earlier pieces. While it now looks retro, I suppose, because his work has influenced what came after it, at the time it must have seemed entirely of the future, and so sophisticated that people almost didn't know what to do with it. I still don't know what to do with it: it's so beautiful, but who needs carbon paper?

I think I'm going to check with a design museum or two to make sure they have a copy of it.