What is this tissue tape wrapped inside a partial bolt of cloth tell me - Length? Also possible age?

It makes sense in a way in as much as Bell Punch did indeed produce all sorts of ticker tape printing machines along with the paper and that paper ribbon does suggest ticker tape to me but I suspect has nothing to do with the manufacture of the cloth.

Does the tape run throughout the bolt?

I would think 60s cloth, Motherwell abstract pattern--maybe.

As Midge asks, has the selvedges been checked?

 

I love that fabric, likely it is 1950s. Very mid century modern. If American, I might think even late 40s but since it is England I would go for early to mid 1950s.

 

Agree with Ruth. I think it's a price tag.

 

Disagree, wouldn't it be written as 1s/8d if pre-decimal pricing.

 

1/8 is how we wrote it in Australia. It's assumed you'll know what it means.

 

I agree they did do a lot but cloth, cor, that would be a very rare find I should think.

 

Fair point.

It leaves me to wonder if the supplier of the cloth was using a Punch pricing machine.

I have seen bolts of cloth in wholesalers & mills where there is a pricing ribbon that extends for a couple of folds, when its cut what is remaining is written along with the price.

 

Ah!

And yes, per Yd. I should think, which does at least date the bolt to the 60s possibly 50s.

Is a " Batch" a sandwich?

 

Thank you so much, so knowledgable. I unrolled the bolt it seems to indicate half a yard is 8/8ths so I assume this piece at 11 and 4/8ths is, I think, 5.75 yards. Is seems a very complicated system. There is no information on the selvedges the print is full bleed edge to edge. Thanks for your help. Celia

 

I think it just got used for other things.

I remember as a nipper, 8-9 I got Saturday work around market stalls.

Some of the fabric stalls/shops, there would be a stack of cloth bolts and in my best writing and in pencil, I would measure and if there wasn't any, put a strip of paper, write price for a couple of folds, yds. at the beginning.

The idea being, price didn't change usually, yds. did and should have got scribbled out as used, never did, hence my job.

As I recall it wasn't unusual for some bolts of cloth to have this paper ribbon running through out.

 

Nah, just sandwich or roll size, ]I can't resist a bacon sarnie.

Pre 1970s UK, I would have thought always yards.

After decimal it took a long time for some trades to go metric and as late as 2020 some fabric wholesalers around Brick Lane, London still used yds.