One Sheet: The Christmas Wreath, Eighty-Six Deep
Posted by Jon on
One Sheet is a series about single objects from the boxes.
We have eighty-six of these
Not eighty-six Christmas designs. Eighty-six copies of this one sheet.
Nothing else in the catalogued holding comes close. A rock band might run to one or two. A muscle car, three or four. A Christmas wreath runs to eighty-six.
What that actually tells us
That isn’t collecting. That’s ordering.
Somebody bought these by the box, in autumn, because they expected to sell them by the box in a six-week window. Then they did it again the following year. The depth is the fingerprint of a seasonal buying cycle — a shop planning ahead, a rep taking an order in September, a catalogue that went out before the leaves turned.
The iron-on trade gets remembered as counterculture merchandise: rock, drugs, dirty jokes, hot rods. It was also a normal seasonal business selling wreaths to families.
The evidence nobody kept
There must have been a Christmas catalogue. A sample book that went out to shops in September so they could order for December. Somebody printed it, reps carried it, buyers marked it up.
We have never seen one. If you have — a seasonal transfer catalogue, an order form, anything — we’d very much like to: irononstation@gmail.com
At $10 it’s the cheapest thing in the shop. It’s also, in its way, the most informative.
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