Duplication of railway and RMS documents during the 1890s

[NW Mailing List]

Frank,

I believe the books were called Letter Press Books or in some cases flat 
files. The you might find an end use date by looking at the legal/secretary 
correspondence files at NWHS Archibes at GOB East.

Eastern Regional Coal Archives at Bluefield, WV has the Letter Press Books 
of the Flat-Top Coal Land Associstion and its predecessor and sucessor 
companies, but I have never looked at the beginning and ending dates.

Alex Schust


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "NW Mailing List" <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: <undisclosed recipients:>
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2011 1:31 AM
Subject: Duplication of railway and RMS documents during the 1890s


Hello!

Has anyone encountered "copying books?"  These were bound ledgers of thin, 
plain, yellow or white tissue paper.  The paper had the consistency a thin, 
soft, smooth-textured paper towel and wasn't like onion-skin paper. Printed 
forms, typewriter ribbons, and writing ink were available to facilitate 
duplication long before photocopying or carbon copies.

To make a copy of the correspondence, the completed sheet was dampened, laid 
within a copying book with a blank tissue page over the sheet, and then put 
into a book press to make an impression onto the tissue page. I am not 
finding much information about this approach to making business copies. Some 
railway and Railway Mail Service forms from about the 1890s-1910s were 
printed using this "copying ink."

I'd welcome references to when this method came into use and later was 
generally discontinued. Some information may appear in printer's supply and 
stationery catalogs which might illustrate these items. I've purchased a 
book press and will eventially put it into the records room at Boyce 
station, although I think this approach to copying station records was on 
the decline by 1913.

Thanks for any information,

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com
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