Simon Barcham Green's Papermaking Moulds

Last post from TypePad - Maybe

Following my recent post, TypePad is closing down at the end of September 2025, which could have meant that the images and information on Papermoulds would be lost.

I am now delighted to announce that the University of Iowa Libraries has come to the rescue and set up a static snapshot of my site which you can view at https://paper.lib.uiowa.edu/papermoulds/

So far as I can see, this copy is accurate in every detail and the internal and external links all work.

I am very grateful to Donna Brooks, Interim Director and Matthew Butler, Research Manager,  both at the Digital Scholarship & Publishing Studio at the Libraries and Tim Barrett, Professor Emeritus in the University of Iowa Center for the Book for engaging their support.

"Static" means exactly that and I will not be able to update the snapshot of the site. I am continuing to investigate a way of making an updateable copy but this is a lower priority as I very rarely post nowadays. However I may wish to in the future, so I would like to keep the option open. If this becomes possible, I will post more information here.

Whilst writing I would like to thank all those who have supported my site and, I hope, found it interesting and also to those who have taken on the custodianship of Hayle Mill moulds by purchasing examples from me.

 

 

A small mystery solved

It is some years now since I added a page for a beautiful mould from Tumba in Sweden containing this beautiful water mark.

See this link 

At the time I wrote "I do not know why Tumba use the beehive as their symbol but this is a particularly lovely mark with the wreath of flowers and the bees."

Last week I had an email with the answer:

"You remarked that you do not know why Tumba use a beehive and I think I can shed some light in this.

In the 17th century my early ancestors were involved in producing among other things oil, paint, whale oil, but mainly paper. In those days white paper was a prized commodity and in 1665 a paper mill was built named De Veenboer. It produced paper made from rags. But in 1709 the mill was sold to Cornelis Honig and Jan Honig,  who started making white paper. This was a protected technique and it had a watermark in it of a beehive, since the surname Honig means honey. The name of the mill was changed into The Beehive (De Bijenkorf) upon purchase. Now, between the years of 1750 and 1760, three brothers (Jan, Erasmus, and Casper Mulder) who were working in the mill, illegally sold this technique to the Swedish State Bank. The Swedes apparently suffered a lot from conterfeit money and this technique put a stop to that. Jan was caught and was imprisoned for a long time, Erasmus was able to escape to Sweden where his other brother, Casper joined him. Apparently they did well in their new home country. Until deep into the 19th century, Swedish bank paper was made using this Zaandam method, recognizable by the image of the Honig family businesses.

I hope you have found this a bit of an interesting read. Please have a good week.

Kind regards,

Victor Honig

Zutphen - The Netherlands"

Thank you very much Victor.

Final use for Finale Paper

I had been keeping my stock of Finale until all remaining 4,500 sheets could be used it for a special publication. Finale was the last paper ever made at Hayle Mill and and included a special watermark designed by Claire van Vliet of the Janus Press. Most of the original stock was used for "The Green Family of Papers and Hayle Mill by Maureen P. Green which was published by the Janus Press - see this item

I am now delighted to announce that the last of the Finale has been used by the Arion Press of San Francisco for "100 Love Sonnets" by Nobel Award Winner. As Arion write:

Pablo Neruda’s astonishing love poems are the most beloved and oft-quoted works of a towering figure in Latin American letters. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971, Neruda was revered throughout his lifetime as Chile’s “poet of the people” and is considered one of the 20th century’s most influential poets. Arion Press is honored to present the first fine press bilingual edition of his celebrated cycle of 100 sonnets, printed in English and Spanish on historic handmade paper in collaboration with four renowned contemporary Latinx artists.

Click here to read the prospectus.

The Paper: In 1987, a renowned paper mill on a tributary of the River Thames, Hayle Mill, couched its final sheet of handmade paper. “Finale,” made of 100% flax, was the last paper made there by Barcham Green, which also crafted the bespoke paper on which Arion’s monumental Moby-Dick was printed in 1979. The paper used in this book, then, is historic: the last of its kind and of special significance to the Press.

The Fine Press Edition

• Four frontispieces tipped by hand into frames debossed into the paper

• Machine-sewn, square-backed binding

• Two-color, cloth-and-paper slipcase imprinted front and back in black and bordeaux inks

• Limited to 190 copies

 

News about the Hayle Mill Archives

The 20th century archives were moved into my main paper store last year. Here's the story of how that was done:

Download So last century by SBG on p25 of Icon News 95 - August 2021 web (003)

If you like Icon News, why not Join Icon

The Paper Foundation has launched its new website

The Paper Foundation The Foundation has been created to celebrate and perpetuate centuries of paper heritage. They have started with a papermaking studio and in time have ambitious plans to build a home for all the paper arts. The Foundation owns a large collection of moulds from Hayle Mill and other hand-paper mills and a variety of artefacts and archives. 

Tim Barrett "retires"

 

Most paper enthusiasts will know that the most influential handpapermaker in the USA for the last 50 years or so has been Baretto-san also known as Professor Timothy Barrett of the University of Iowa Centre for the Book. My wife Maureen and I separately met Tim in the mid 1970s - in her case in Toronto and in mine at Hayle Mill. 

Over the years Tim has become a good friend and also one that can charmingly and obstinately holding up his end of some abstruse argument. Irritatingly, he is quite often right. Although his early interests were in Japan, for a very long period of time he has been obsessed with early European papermaking and he has conducted a lot of hands on research on how to do this in the middle of Iowa. Over that time he has educated and trained hundreds of young people and passed on his passion and deep knowledge and experience.  I have learned a lot from Tim and expect to do so in the years to come.

Tim has now officially retired though he seems to have a new career in fundraising.

The University has put together an affectionate,  charming, highly respectful and fascinating short tribute to the now Emeritus Professor Barrett and I recommend it to all of you.

https://www.grad.uiowa.edu/news/2020-07-24/tim-barrett-the-story-of-a-papermaker

Picture reproduced without permission of the subject but I may remove it if required! 

Where are they now?

I have recently put this letter in Hand Papermaking Newsletter:

My father, Rémy John Barcham Green and I sold old hand papermaking moulds for many years. I had not realised how early this had started until I
recently came across the card illustrated, which presumably Rémy sent to a wide range of customers.

 
In 1961, hardly anyone was making paper as a studio type of activity, so I infer that Rémy initially thought that he would sell to customers as collectors’ items to hang on the wall or incorporated into coffee tables etc. By the time I joined the business in 1968, sales of old moulds were in full swing. Customers included Howard and Katherine Clark at Twinrocker, Greg Knowle at Iowa Center for the Book and Muir Dawson in Los Angeles.

Rémy kept selling moulds after I bought the business back in 1975. After a while this became a bit of an issue between us, as his prices were still ridiculously low and he was selling to some workshops who were trying to compete with us on a small scale. Eventually he stopped selling moulds in about 1976.

When Hayle Mill closed in 1987, I had about 250 pairs of moulds in stock which I decided to offer for sale. I priced them based on what Ron MacDonald at Edwin Amies charged. I classified all the moulds by condition from 1 to 10 and discounted accordingly. Hayle Mill moulds have gone to new owners in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Catalonia, Czechia, Finland, France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Japan, Korea, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, among others. Most are in collections and some are in use. In early 2019 I sold all but a dozen moulds to the Cropper Paper Foundation in northern England. The few moulds that I am keeping are for my personal collection.

So, after 58 years, the sale of moulds from Hayle Mill has eventually ended. I sometimes wonder where they are now and what they are used for. Some will have changed owners again and hopefully most have survived. However, not everyone values moulds. I recently had an email from someone about a mould that he had rescued from a skip —discarded and on its way to oblivion. If any readers of Hand Papermaking Newsletter have information about them, what they are used for, and their journey from Hayle Mill over the years, I would be very interested to hear from them.

HPM and I invite readers to send the story picture of their Hayle Mill mould(s) to [email protected] and we may publish the story at HPM or on this blog.

Please spread the word on this treasure hunt to anyone you think might be interested.

Not familiar with Handpapermaking? Visit https://handpapermaking.org/ 

Hollander beater sold

The laboratory beater has been sold and is now in Czechia where its new owner Karel Křenek will restore it over the next year or so and use it to make his very fine conservation papers.

Featured Moulds 54 - M127 Charles I Single faced laid moulds

Charles I was a single faced laid grey paper, similar to the F J Head range but developed by Jack Barcham Green in the 1930s. He wrote the letters backwards with a pen to make them look "ancient" and the mould maker copied the drawing. 

Charles I was developed for printing fine limited edition books. It was also used for endpapers and occasionally for calligraphy and drawings.

These moulds are quite tired with several repairs. In the 1960s and 1970s, sales were low so the last batch was made in 1972.

Catalogue updated 12th November 2012

As I have sold several moulds recently, I have updated my catalogue.

To see the latest version  Download Mould catalogue - published 12th November 2018

 

Two articles in Hand Papermaking Magazine

From time to time I write an article for Hand Papermaking magazine and this summer there are two in their special issue on Water .

 

HPM has been the leading magazine in its field since 1986. Each issue features articles on a variety of topics within the field, including: contemporary artistic approaches, craft techniques, historical topics and reference, international development, and educational initiatives. Articles are written by experts in the field, many of them practitioners, and each magazine includes unique samples of handmade paper.

My first article is intended to help hand papermakers understand some of the chemistry of water that makes the entire process possible. The second is about a special project when we made 30,000 sheets of custom paper for the renowned edition of Moby Dick, published by the Arion Press.

You can read these articles plus a variety of others on many subjects by subscribing to Hand Papermaking .