I just took off a lable on a big pack of what we sell as Parchmont Wove. On one end it says "Crane's Cover", on the other "Crest Natural White Wove." The former name of this paper was Parchmont Wove. It is no. 2091.
There is another paper that we sell called Cranes Platinotype. This paper was designed in conjunction with Dick Arentz who was a dedicated fan of Cranes Artificial Parchment, available in the 70's and early 80's. Dick made many visits to the mill in Dalton working with their paper designers and came up with a paper similar to but not exactly like the legendary Artificial Parchment. Some improvements were made and some of the former papers qualities could not be duplicated due to changes in mill machinery.
This all came about because Arentz was at an photo show opening of his and started complaining about the sorry state of affairs concerning Cranes paper. It turned out that by odds of millions to one, the man he was talking to, unknown to him, was the grandson of the Cranes owner. The grandson, I believe held a position in the corporation. As I understand it, the bean counters were not happy with doing a new paper, but the Cranes family thought that having prints made on their paper was a prestige issue.
After the paper was completed, Cranes sent out some to print shops that they own. These shops specialize in high end printing, such as bonds, diplomas and the like. Apparently they went nuts over this new paper. It is still being made in limited runs for internal use and for platinum printing. We call it "Platinotype" paper.
Some of the details of this may be off as I am going on rumor and innuendo, phone talks and other inexact methods of communication, however, in general, this is the story of the Cranes Platinotype paper.
In 1982 we tried desperately to get Cranes to sell us the social stationary AS8111. We got snubbed. We had to have a "nice" store in a "nice" neighborhood. They would come and inspect our store. Printers would call us for the paper. I was buying it at Frances Orr on Canon Dr. in Beverly Hills for $125.00 per box of 250 sheets and selling it at a loss. When printers called for it, I had them call Cranes on an internal number we had gotten for their Social Stationary division. After Cranes got several hundred phone calls, they called us and asked if we'd be kind enough to carry it, unaware, apparently of our previous attempts to get them to sell it to us. We agreed to do them the favor. We had to agree to audits of our sales records by the U.S. Treasury Department, as Cranes was the major supplier for paper for the printing of U.S. currancy. No one has ever audited us.
Bostick & Sullivan is now the Southwest Distributor for Cranes Social Stationary.
Dick Sullivan
<center>Bostick & Sullivan
PO Box 16639, Santa Fe
NM 87506
505-474-0890 FAX 505-474-2857</center>
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