Paper sheets and other objects

The extensive collection of paper sheets is stored in large filing cabinets in the study room of the paper collection. There is a subcollection of old and modern hand-made paper leaves classified according to country and manufacturer (mill, factory or person). A special division is formed by the so-called ream cover, some hundreds of which have been stored in special slip-cases. A ream cover is a leaf of tough paper usually of a slightly inferior quality, which covered the wrappings of a ream of paper at the top upper side. Generally, a ream cover was printed with a logo, the name and place of the paper manufacturer, and a quality grading of the paper in the packing.

The subcollection of decorated paper is one of the world's most important collections. Besides its extensive size there is a rich variation in types of decorated paper, with as main groups: plain coloured and painted paper, metalpaper (among which real and imitation gold- and silverpaper), bronze varnished paper, brocade paper, marmered paper, paste paper, pattern paper, lithographic paper and decorated papers manufactured with more modern printing techniques. The decorated papers have been classified according to type, country of origin and manufacturer/publisher. The collection covers the period from the late sixteenth century up to the present. Besides loose leaves of decorated paper, various applications can also be found in the collection, among which examples of decorated paper used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as simple covers for brochures, doctoral theses and orations, both loose and pasted on thin cardboard covers.
Apart from the collection of paper leaves, the paperhistorical Department also owns a considerable number of objects, such as various papermoulds, several old tools to determine the tensile strength and the fold and tear resistance of paper, examples of other carriers of writing such as papyrus, beaten bark (amatl, tapa, dluwang) and palm leaf, and other examples of paper art, e.g. "pulp paintings" and three-dimensional objects. Finally, there are several rarities, for instance a seventeenth century stained-glass window with the coat of arms of one paper manufacturer's family, a factory flag of "De Schone Haas" paper mill (1839), a school wall chart: "The Manufacturing of Paper" (1857) and a number of wasps' nests.