crafty sample books at the monkey's paw

The Monkey's Paw, a Dundas St. West shop filled with vintage books and emphemera, has released a microcatalogue of sample books available in their shop. I thought I'd post it here since this first catalogue is decidedly crafty in character, featuring fabric, yarn and paper swatches, etc. Go by soon to check them out before they're out the door.

Monkey's Paw Microcatalogue #1: Sample Books
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Sample books are intriguing because they're not really books. Though they may contain useful and interesting printed data, their real intent is to display examples of non-book merchandise or materials in booklike form. They're typically hard to find secondhand because they're manufactured in small runs, and distributed only to a specialized (often professional) market. But their practical beauty and tactile aspect make them objects of enduring fascination. Here are a few examples currently in stock.
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AMERICAN FABRICS. NUMBER 73, FALL/WINTER 1966
Doric Publishing Co., New York, 1966.
An astonishing oversized fashion magazine intended for the trade: many of the articles are illustrated with actual fabric swatches, in addition to terrific photos and line art. This issue's emphasis is Go-Go culture (Tiger Morse, vinyl, etc.), but it also contains articles on new prints from Africa and the history of the staid textile house Galey & Lord. Sewn wraps, a bit rubbed, but overall a very good copy, with 85 fabric swatches tipped in.
$45
[note: we have in stock other issues of this publication from various dates throughout the 1960s.]

INDANTHREN DYESTUFFS ON COTTON YARN.
General Dyestuffs Corporation, New York, no date [ca. 1930].
Commercial dyes demonstrated on bands of cotton thread wrapped on mounted cards. Each of nine colour families (orange, red, violet, etc.) is represented by a spectrum of ten dyes in three shades; the resulting collection is a subtle rainbow of vintage colour. Blue linen-covered boards, showing a bit of wear, but a well-preserved copy overall.
$65

KIVAR NO. 5
Plastic Coating Corp., Holyoke, Mass., no date [ca. 1950s].
Kivar is an imitation leather typically used in cheap bookbindings. This fold-out brochure contains nearly 200 sample strips of Kivar in various colours, shades, textures, and finishes -- "Cordovan," "Morocco," etc. -- with paper index strips laid on top. The whole package suggests aesthetic deception on an industrial scale, with a faint smell reminiscent of your grandmother's bible.

$35

ORIENTAL PRINTING, FANTASY AND ART PAPERS
Andrews-Nelson-Whitehead Paper Corp., New York, no date [ca. 1960].
Oblong string-bound book containing 132 samples of the most beautiful Japanese papers you've ever seen. Silk tissues, foils, bizarre naturalistic textures and colours . . . even a "fantasy paper" with an actual butterfly fixed within it. The covers and spine are also decorated with lovely examples of paper, of course. A very good copy.
$95

R.O.P. NEWSPAPER COLOR INK BOOK

AdPro/American Newspaper Publishers Association, New York, 1968.

A ringbound collection of newsprint sheets printed with "an exact visual sample of the three AdPro process colors, six blending inks, a mixing white, and seventy-seven assorted color intermixes from the ten basic inks." And you thought HTML was complicated!
$20

Location & Hours
1229 Dundas St. West
Wednesday through Saturday: 11 - 6
Sunday: noon - 5
[Monday & Tuesday: closed]