Quire Press prints correspondence on cotton rag heavy enough to hold an impression you can read with your thumb. A small shelf of ready-made goods, and a full commission service for the pieces that only exist once.
A note on impression
We hold between 0.004 and 0.012 inches of bite, chosen for the stock and the face. Deeper is not better; past a point the counters close up and the paper fibers tear rather than compress.
Path one
Eight goods, printed in batches through the winter and wrapped in glassine. Six ship from the shelf within three business days; the monogram set and the address stamp carry your own letters, so they are made to order and take ten.
Path two
Wedding suites, monograms cut to a die, business stationery, addressed envelopes in iron gall. Drawn, proofed, pressed and finished here, with your eyes on every stage before the run.
A plate is made from your artwork — photopolymer for most work, magnesium or copper for a die that must last. It is locked into the bed of the press, inked by rollers, and the sheet is driven against it under a few hundred pounds of pressure. The type is not stamped on. It is pushed in.
Everything follows from that. The paper has to be soft and thick enough to take the bite without cracking, which is why cotton rag and not wood pulp. Ink sits in the valley rather than on the surface, so color reads slightly deeper at the edges of a letter than at its center. And because each color is a separate pass through the press, a two-color job is printed twice and has to hold register between them — which is the whole reason for the marks in the corners of this page.
A letter arrives before it is read. Weight in the hand, the give of the sheet, the small shadow inside each letterform in raking light — these are read first and they are read by everyone, including people who would never say so.
This is also why we print short runs on a hand-fed platen rather than long ones on a cylinder. Twenty-five cards fed one at a time can be inspected one at a time, and the four that ran light never leave the shop.
Six of these are on the shelf in the sizes and colors shown: no proof stage, no minimum, no wait. The monogram set and the address stamp are set from letters we already hold, so they are made to order and ship in ten business days — still no proof, still no minimum. Anything drawn for you is a commission, and starts on the other path.
Product images generated for the concept, not photographed
Blind-ruled: pressed without ink, so the lines are shadow only. For the kind of note that should not look printed.
Three letters from our cut alphabet, centered, with a rhodamine rule beneath. Choose your letters at checkout; nothing is redrawn.
Scored and folded to stand, blank for your own hand. We leave them unprinted but for the rule, because guest lists change late.
A working pad, printed properly. Padded at the head with flexible glue so sheets come away clean at the rule.
Your return address on a deep-etched polymer die, mounted on hard maple. Set in our own face, three lines, no extra charge for a long street.
Small enough that the note has to be short, which is the point. A single rhodamine mark at the head, the rest left to you.
One quire, taken from a single ream so the shade is consistent across the lot. Two deckled edges, left long.
Hand-lined with a rhodamine hatch, cut and fitted one at a time. Sold on their own because people run out of envelopes before cards.
Nothing in the bag yet. The shelf ships within three business days; the monogram set and the address stamp are made to order and take ten.
Concept build — checkout is not connected
Wedding suites, monograms cut to a die, business stationery, addressed envelopes. Nothing here is a surprise: you see the drawing before the plate is made, and the plate before the run. Below is every stage, what it needs from you, and how long it honestly takes.
Commission minimum
$850
Before postage and before addressing. Most wedding suites land between $2,400 and $6,000.
Deposit
50%
Taken at stage two and applied to the total. It holds your press dates. The balance is due before printing begins.
Revision rounds
Two
Included at the proof stage. Further rounds are billed at $110 an hour, which is rare and always agreed first.
Lead time
10–14 wks
From signed estimate to delivery. Add three weeks between September and December.
Each of these began as the sequence below
You send the form at the foot of this page. We read it the same week and reply with an honest first range, the press dates still open, and whether the date you have in mind is possible at all.
Allow 1 week
What we need from you
Your date, an approximate quantity, and a budget range you are comfortable saying out loud. A range is enough; a figure to the dollar is not expected.
An hour, at the shop or on a call, with the paper drawer open. We settle format, stock, number of colors, printing method and finishing, then send a written estimate and a schedule with your press dates named.
Allow 1 week · 50% deposit taken here
What we need from you
Final wording, or something close to it. Any existing marks or type you are tied to. A signed estimate and the deposit to hold the dates.
Drawing and typesetting. You receive full-size digital proofs showing every piece in the suite at actual size, with the ink colors named by Pantone and the stock named by weight. Two rounds of changes are included.
Allow 2 – 3 weeks
What we need from you
Marked-up proofs, returned together rather than in pieces. Every spelling checked by someone other than you — names, dates, street names, honorifics.
Plates are made and we pull a proof on your actual stock, in your actual ink, at the impression we intend to run. It goes in the mail to you. Nothing is printed until it comes back signed.
Allow 1 week
What we need from you
A signature on the proof, and the balance of the invoice. After this point text cannot change — the plate is cut.
The run, one color at a time, hand-fed. Each pass is registered to the last and the press is stopped to check the impression every fifty sheets. We print 10% over on every job to cover finishing losses.
Allow 3 – 4 weeks
What we need from you
Nothing at all. You will get one photograph from the press floor and then silence until finishing.
Trimming to size, scoring and folding, edge painting, envelope lining, and calligraphy if the envelopes are being addressed by hand. This is the slowest stage per piece and the one most often underestimated.
Allow 2 weeks
What we need from you
Your guest list in a spreadsheet, one row per envelope, exactly as each line should be written. We address from the file as given.
Everything assembled, checked against the proof one last time, wrapped in glassine and boxed. Sent tracked, or collected from the shop. Plates and press proofs are archived here for seven years.
Allow 1 week
What we need from you
A delivery address where a box will be signed for, and a date by which you need it in hand rather than in transit.
Everything here helps us answer properly the first time. If a field does not apply, leave it — we would rather have a short honest form than a padded one.
These are the stocks, inks and methods a commission is built from. Samples of any paper below are sent free on request; a printed specimen box, with each stock shown at three impression depths, is $24 and is credited against a commission.
Cotton rag, almost without exception. Wood-pulp stock has a hard surface and a short fiber: it cracks along a score and it fights the bite. Cotton compresses and stays compressed. Weights are given in the American pound basis first, with the gsm equivalent beside it, because the two systems disagree about everything.
| Stock | Composition | Weight | gsm | Edges | Colors held | Chosen for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rag 220 Double-Thick | 100% cotton rag, mold made | 220lb cover | 600 | Square cut, or deckled on two sides | Soft white, ecru, pearl gray | The deepest impression we can hold. Invitations, monograms, anything meant to survive a drawer. |
| Rag 110 Single | 100% cotton rag | 110lb cover | 300 | Square cut | Soft white, ecru | Place cards, reply cards, anything scored and folded. Takes a moderate bite without cracking. |
| Handmade Deckle Sheet | 100% cotton, sheet-formed by hand | 190lb cover | 520 | Four true deckles, no two alike | Natural white only | One-off pieces and top sheets. Sold by the sheet; expect variation and want it. |
| Rag 32 Writing | 100% cotton, laid finish | 32lb writing | 120 | Two deckles, long edge | Warm white | Letter sheets and second sheets. Thin enough to fold twice into an A2 envelope. |
| Text 70 Laid | 25% cotton, laid finish | 70lb text | 104 | Square cut | Natural, soft white | Pads, programs, envelope liners. The one stock here that is not full rag, and priced accordingly. |
| Envelope 80 | 100% cotton rag envelope | 80lb text | 118 | Pointed or square flap | Soft white, ecru, pearl gray | Matched to every cover stock above. Gummed, not self-seal. |
A deckle is not a torn edge. It is the soft feathered boundary left where the pulp met the frame as the sheet was formed, and it runs slightly translucent when held to a window. Mold-made stocks carry two; genuinely handmade sheets carry four. We never trim one off to square a card — if the edge is wanted straight, we buy the stock cut.
A false deckle, torn against a wet ruled line, is available and is honestly described as such. It costs $0.45 a side and it does not look the same.
The cut edge of a 220lb sheet is nearly a sixteenth of an inch of exposed white fiber, and it will take color. Painted by hand in three thin coats, sanded between, in gouache mixed to the ink on the face or deliberately against it.
Rubber-based ink, mixed on a slab from base colors to a Pantone reference, weighed rather than eyeballed so the second run of a job matches the first. A mix is kept in a labeled tin with the job number for two years. Ink color on the sheet always reads a shade lighter than the swatch, because the sheet is not white and the ink is not opaque.
Something not on this shelf
Most commissions end up in a mix of their own. The bench lets you name a color, cut it, darken it, and see it on the stock you have chosen rather than on white.
Letterpress ink is transparent by design — it is meant to sit in a valley and let the paper carry the light. Put a pale ink on a dark sheet and the sheet wins. Expect the color to drop two or three steps toward the stock.
Cut from Text 70 Laid to a template made for each envelope size, glued along the flap only so the envelope still folds flat for posting. Printed with the same plates as the suite, or left plain in a second color of stock.
Relative cost is given against letterpress at 1.00 for the same piece, same quantity, one color. It is a ratio, not a price: the plate, the run length and the finishing move the real figure far more than the method does.
| Method | How the image is made | Where the ink sits | Relative cost | Setup | Choose it when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Letterpress | Photopolymer or copper plate, pressed into the sheet under pressure | In a valley below the surface | 1.00 | $45 – $90 per plate | The piece will be held. Heavy rag stock, type and rules, one to three colors. |
| Foil stamping | Heated magnesium or copper die presses metallic or pigment foil into the sheet | On the surface, in the valley | 1.40 | $120 – $260 per die | A light or metallic mark on dark stock, or a monogram that must catch the light. |
| Engraving | Image incised into a copper plate; ink forced into the incision and lifted by pressure | Raised above the surface, glossy | 2.20 | $300 – $650 per plate | Fine hairlines and very small text. Formal business stationery and crests. Rarely worth it under 500 pieces. |
| Flat printing | Offset or good digital, no pressure and no plate to cut | Level with the surface | 0.40 | None to $30 | Photographs, many colors, long runs, or the enclosures nobody keeps. Honest and cheap; use it for the map, not the invitation. |
| Blind impression | Letterpress plate run with no ink at all | Nowhere — shadow only | 0.85 | $45 – $90 per plate | A monogram or rule that should be felt rather than read. Needs 220lb stock to show at all. |
Addressing is $3.50 to $6.00 an envelope depending on hand and ink, with a 25-envelope minimum. Order 15% spare envelopes; names are misspelled, addresses change, and a nib catches.
An ink swatch is not a promise. Letterpress ink is transparent and it sits in a valley below the surface, so the sheet underneath does half the work — the same mix reads one color on soft white, another on ecru, and very nearly nothing on a dark cover. This bench mixes on screen what we would mix on the slab, and shows it on the stock you have chosen rather than on white.
A screen is an argument, not a proof — every mix is approved from a drawdown pulled on your own paper
Twelve inks kept mixed and tinned, each weighed to a Pantone reference so the second run of a job matches the first. Any of them is a starting point, not a commitment.
Concept build — no ink is ordered from this page
A monitor emits light; a card reflects it. That alone moves a color further than any of the sliders above. Add that ink film thickness varies across a run, that rag stock yellows a shade in its first year, and that the room a letter is opened in is never the room it was proofed in, and you have four reasons to treat the panel on the right as a sketch.
It is a useful sketch. It will tell you whether a pale gray is going to disappear into pearl stock, and that is most of what people get wrong.
A drawdown is the ink pulled flat across your actual sheet with a knife, then labeled and mailed. It costs nothing on a commission and it is the only thing either of us should be arguing from.