The images on this CD illustrate a nurseryman's sample book of a century ago. This example was assembled in approximately 1896 from botanical lithographs printed by the Stecher Lithographic Company of Rochester, New York.
This sample book had 165 plates. The plates are scanned at 400 dots-per-inch for this CD. You can page through this feast of botanical images on your personal computer, and the plates can be printed and framed for your home or office. You can also use pairs of plates as wallpaper on your PC's desktop.
From the 1860s into the 1920s, salesmen used color catalogs to show clients their nursery's inventory. These nurseryman's sample books were assembled from stock sets of color drawings of fruits, flowers, shrubs, trees, and hedges. The 5-1/2 by 9-inch color plates (known in the industry as "fruit plates" and "nurserymen's plates") were produced by a specialized printing industry centered in Rochester, New York.
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Plate production methods evolved over the years, and included watercolor and stencil paintings, hand-colored lithographs, chromolithographs, and photographic plates. The plates were generally printed on one side, allowing for for the peculiar construction of the typical sample book shown below. Typically, three or four pairs of plates were glued together back-to-back over a strip of connecting ribbon. The ribbon allowed the salesman to flip quickly through six to eight plates at a time. The plate sets were folded together, and a metal clasp secured the accordion-like book for travel.
Fruit plate publisher imprints included:
Rochester Lithographing Company (Rochester, N.Y.)
Mensing & Stecher, Lithographers (Rochester, N.Y.)
Stecher Lithographic Company (Rochester, N.Y.)
M. Brunswick & Company (Rochester, N.Y.)
C. R. Webster Company
J. W. Thompson & Company
Nicholson Company
Webster & Albee Company
Vredenburg & Company
Kellogg & Bulkeley Company (Hartford, Conn.)
E.B. & E.C. Kellogg Company (Hartford, Conn.)
Sage, Sons & Company (Buffalo, N.Y.)
Also included on this BookWebCD is the text of a seven-page 1875 article for nursery salesmen:
"The History and Practical Use of the Colored Plate Book."
This advice on use and care of a sample book includes sales techniques and strategies, and is excerpted from The Tree Agents' Private Guide: A Manual for the Use of Agents and Dealers, Containing Suggestions and Directions for Successful Work in Canvassing for the Sale of Nursery Stock. (1875), which was written and published by D. M. Dewey, the premier manufacturer of fruit plates in Rochester, New York.
Below
are 10 representative pages from the book.
See a sample screen shot for
the BookWebCD.
and See
more on the BookWebCD format.
This BookWebCD is $12.00.
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