1898 The Fred Macey Company “Business System” Catalog for office furniture

$95 · Offered by eBay

In 1892, Fred Macey began a mail-order office furniture business in Grand Rapids, MI. In 1896, Fred and his brother built their own factory and started the Fred Macey Furniture Company. Before Macey started selling many kinds of barrister bookcases, he specialized in office furniture. This catalog comes from that time. This rare catalog (No. 5) focuses on The Macey Card Index System. The first part of the catalog is devoted to the processes involved in using the index system and explains the different ways bookkeeping entries could be made. The second half of the catalog features the many different catalog types for sale and how the “Macey locking device” held the index cards securely in place. Near the end of the catalog are several interesting pages. One of them is devoted to the “new” Macey Sectional Bookcase, which was in its first or second year of production. The catalog is 62 pages and measures 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches. Macey was also starting to get into manufacturing office and bookkeeper’s chairs, pictured on page 58. Also, in 1898, the company also offered its “rapid” filing cabinet system, pictured on page 59. I purchased this catalog from a Grand Rapids estate a while back and also noticed a separate order form a Detroit area business called “Brass Novelties,” a company owned by The Detroit Manufacturing Company. It must have been an order for a large system, costing $479 (equivalent to over $19,000 in today’s money). The order form is dated May 16, 1899. The Fred Ma

• Year: 1898
• Condition: Good

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