TEXT: The HPLHS Prop Document Collection
  Welcome to the H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society Prop Document Collection.
  This CD contains over 75 Adobe Acrobat PDF files, from which you can make about a hundred different authen-
  tically styled prop documents for use in role-playing games set in the 1920s and ‘30s. Whether you play live-
  action or just around the table, good realistic props and play aids can really help get your players’ imaginations
  into high gear, and intensify the entire role-playing experience. Any game is more fun to play when you have
  good toys.
  With years of professional propmaking experience and resources at our disposal, we at the HPLHS really
  appreciate highly detailed and authentic props. Andrew Leman, one of the founders of the HPLHS and an 18-
  year Cthulhu Lives! veteran, has been a professional designer of prop documents in Hollywood for the last six
  years. His work has been seen in movies like Galaxy Quest, What Lies Beneath, Scream 3, Gods & Monsters,
  The Thirteenth Floor, The Time Machine, and television shows like “The West Wing” and “Dharma & Greg.”
  Some of the props in this collection got their start when they were made for industry clients. Most of them, how-
  ever, have been made exclusively for role-players and the HPLHS.
  Role-playing props have to live up to a much higher standard of realism and detail than movie props. In a
  movie, you only get to see as much of a prop as the director wants you to see. A prop is seldom on screen for
  more than a few seconds: if you fudge on the details or copy the same page over and over no one will ever
  notice. But props in a game have to be able to withstand lengthy, close inspection and hard use. Every detail is
  important, and it has to be consistent with the world of the game. A prop with joke text or warnings on it can
  actually break the mood of a game, not intensify it.
  Many of the props in this collection are authentic replicas of actual vintage documents. The HPLHS has a large
  collection of such documents. In our quest to accurately capture the style of the time of Lovecraft, we have cre-
  ated over 50 custom computer fonts based on vintage sources. We have scanned type from old catalogs, news-
  papers, telegrams, insurance policies, drivers licenses, and other documents, and made fonts which we used to
  recreate those documents as digital files. A selection of those fonts is provided on this disk for you to use in cre-
  ating your own props, including two fonts which are replicas of H.P. Lovecraft’s own handwriting, scanned from
  his letters to Willis Conover.
  All of the props in this collection (with one or two exceptions) were meant to be printed on an ordinary consumer
  inkjet printer. All have been successfully tested on a Canon S600. (A few of the props require large-format paper
  which might be beyond the resources of the home user.) Each PDF in the collection contains both the prop itself
  and instructions for printing and finishing it. The following few pages define some of the terms used frequently in
  the instructions, and provide suggestions on where to obtain some of the basic materials that you’ll find useful in
  producing actual printed props from these files.
  For more information, visit the prop pages at the HPLHS. www.cthulhulives.org
  We hope you enjoy making the props in this collection, and that they add a new level of fun to your gaming.
  The HPLHS Prop Document Collection, and all the props it contains, are for entertain-
  ment purposes only. © 2002 by HPLHS. All rights reserved. This collection is provided for the
  use and benefit of role-playing game hobbyists ONLY. Permission is hereby granted for the
  user to print copies for his/her personal use in role-playing games. No other permission is
  granted, and any commercial or illegal use of these digital files or the props you can
  make with them is ENTIRELY PROHIBITED.
  
  H P L H S
  Tips for making Prop Documents
  PAPER: Although ordinary white paper will work fine for most of these props, different kinds of documents
  look best printed on different kinds of paper. Every prop file in this collection recommends the best type of
  paper to print it on. If you’re going to get into making props, it’s worth it to obtain a variety of papers. Most
  office supply stores like Staples and Office Depot sell pre-packaged assortments of specialty papers which
  will work in an inkjet printer. Some kinds which might come in handy: a package of nice ivory colored
  resume paper, a package of glossy or semi-gloss photo paper, a package of assorted pastel colors.
  Some of these props need to be printed on cardstock. Buff-colored or manila cardstock will be extremely
  handy, and a light brown cardstock, the color of a grocery bag, will also be good for some props. And for
  some of the booklet-style props something even heavier, like bristol board, is a good idea. We have suc-
  cessfully put bristol board through the HPLHS Canon S600, but if you’re worried about damaging your print-
  er don’t push your luck. You can always print two copies on thinner cardstock and then glue them together
  to get the thickness you need.
  And some of these props need to be printed on very thin paper: 16 lb. bond works best for the Miskatonic
  course book and for the British passport, and newsprint works best for the Arkham streetcar transfers and
  the newspaper. You can get 16 lb. bond at a good office supply store or paper dealer. Newsprint is often
  sold in the form of sketch pads at art supply stores. So is bristol board, for that matter, and other types of
  potentially useful paper.
  A note about parchment paper: it’s the fastest way to make something look fake. It’s not accurate to the peri-
  od, and there’s almost nothing that looks better printed on bogus parchment. Avoid it.
  CUSTOMIZING: Many of the props in the HPLHS collection feature Acrobat form fields where you can type
  in custom information: names, addresses, dates, etc. Because Acrobat only allows you to use a certain very
  limited set of fonts in form fields, this feature—while being very convenient—doesn’t add much to the
  authenticity of the prop. We have put default entries into the props which use form fields, and you can easily
  replace those default entries with information of your own. But for maximum authenticity, delete the entries
  altogether and enter such information with a real typewriter, if you’ve got one, or by hand. 
  If you’re handy with page layout software like PageMaker or Quark XPress, you can do your own layout to
  match the blank spaces in the prop design, and use some of the HPLHS prop fonts, or any fonts you want,
  to customize the finished product. Print the PDF file “blank,” with no custom entries. Then do your own lay-
  out with your customized info based on that “blank.” Reinsert the “blank” into your printer, and print your lay-
  out on top of the preprinted prop. Might take some juggling to get the spacing just right, but the results can
  be worth it.
  SCORING: To score something is to press a line
  into the paper, so that when you fold it it will fold
  in the right place in a perfectly straight line.
  Scoring is best accomplished with a burnisher: a
  handy tool available at art supply stores and
  some office supply houses. We recommend a
  Chartpak adjustable burnisher, as shown at left.
  It has a metal ball point on one end and a flat
  plastic blade on the other. If you don’t want to
  spring for a burnisher, however, you can try to
  score paper with the duller side of a butter knife
  or some similar instrument.
  
  PERFORATING: To perforate something is to cut or punch a series of slits
  or holes in the paper, so that it can be torn in a specific place, usually in a
  perfectly straight line. Perforated documents in the real world are usually
  produced on huge industrial machines that are beyond the reach of your
  average gamer. There are several homegrown ways you can perforate the
  props in this collection. There are a number of kinds of rotary cutters that
  you can get with a perforating blade. You can also use a dressmaker’s
  pounce wheel, which is a very cheap item you can get in the notions
  department of a fabric or craft store. A pounce wheel won’t give you the
  best results, but it’s a cheap and easy solution. If you have access to a
  sewing machine, you can use it to perforate documents by running paper
  through the machine without any thread. Use a short stitch length and the
  needle will punch a nice series of holes. Here at the HPLHS we’ve rigged
  a sewing machine with a special round brass punch which cuts small clean
  holes in the paper like old-fashioned postage stamps.
  Perforating devices:
  Top Left: A perforating blade for a Fiskars
  rotary cutter.
  Bottom Left: a Carl brand desktop person-
  al rotary trimmer. Comes with interchange-
  able blades, including a perforating blade.
  Costs about $24 at a good office supply
  store.
  Top Right: A Fiskars brand handheld rotary
  cutter. Can take any of multiple types of
  blades.
  Bottom Right: A dressmaker’s pounce
  wheel, also known as a tracing wheel. Not
  the most effective tool, but the cheapest.
  CUTTING: Although a few of the prop documents in this collection are
  designed to be 81/2 x 11 inches, most have to be cut out from the page.
  Crop marks, solid black outlines, or color boundaries always indicate
  where to do the cutting. Do not use scissors for cutting: it’s very diffi-
  cult for anyone to get a truly straight edge with a pair of scissors. We
  highly recommend investing in an X-acto or similar craft knife with
  replaceable blades. Change blades often: everything is much easier
  with a sharp blade. Also invest in a steel ruler. Plastic, wood and alu-
  minum rulers can be cut by the X-acto knife, and will quickly get
  chipped and won’t be straight anymore.
  Here’s the best way to cut a perfectly aligned straight edge. Place the tip of your knife blade directly on a
  crop mark or solid black outline that you want to cut. Push it down slightly so it goes into the paper. Then put
  the one end of your steel ruler snug up against the knife blade. Position the other end of your ruler so that it
  passes directly over the next crop mark or along the outline. This lines up the ruler perfectly. Lift the knife
  and then cut along the edge of the ruler. Once you get the hang of this technique, you’ll find you can very
  quickly cut numerous perfectly straight edges.
  Another tip for cutting: put the ruler over the part of the paper you want to keep, so that if the knife slips for
  some reason you’re not cutting into the prop itself, but only into the part you were going to throw away any-
  how.
  
  ROUNDED CORNERS: Some of the props in this collection look best
  with rounded corners. Although you can certainly round them by hand
  using an X-acto or other craft knife, there are a number of specialty
  cutters that can do it for you more easily and reliably. Thanks to the
  growing hobby of scrapbook-keeping, there are all kinds of novelty
  scissors and punches available at your local arts & crafts store. You
  can get corner rounders, scissors that cut a wavy or postage-stamp
  edge, and punches that punch out little shapes like hearts and dia-
  monds instead of just old-fashioned round holes. 
  GLUING: Many of the props in
  this collection require you to
  glue one piece of paper to
  another, or glue the front of the
  prop to the back. We highly
  recommend using a glue stick
  or a dry adhesive applicator, as
  shown at right. Don’t use spray
  glue: it has toxic fumes, the
  overspray creates an unholy
  mess, and it’s usually so sticky
  that one mistake will ruin the
  prop. Ordinary white glue, on the other hand, is usually too wet and will wrinkle the
  paper too much. Glue sticks and tape adhesive applicators are the cleanest and easi-
  est to work with. 
  STAPLES: Some of the props in this collection call for stapling pages together. In the ‘20s and ‘30s there
  was more variety in staples than there is today: nowadays it’s all completely standardized. Ordinary staples
  will work for most of the props, but for the matchbooks and the Miskatonic undergraduate course book you
  might want to use heavy duty staples.
  TAPE: Some of the props in this collection call for tape
  binding: wrapping some tape around the spine of a
  booklet to hide the staples. Cloth gaffer’s tape is by far
  the best tape for this purpose. It comes in a variety of
  colors and widths, it’s very durable, and it looks very
  good. You should be able to find it a good hardware or
  art supply store. 
  RUBBER STAMPS: A lot of these documents would
  have had dates and/or other information stamped on
  them with a rubber stamp. In some cases we’ve repli-
  cated that look in the prop itself. But in other cases
  we’ve left that out. For added authenticity, you might
  want to get a do-it-yourself rubber stamp kit, like the
  one shown at left, at an office supply store. You can
  make your own date stamps, etc., to add these con-
  vincing details.
  PHOTOS: Some of these props, like passports and
  drivers licenses, call for a photograph to be added. In
  the ‘20 and ‘30s, of course, such photos could not be
  printed into the document the way they are today: they
  were always attached separately. If you have a photo
  of the player for whom the prop is being made, use PhotoShop or some similar program to make it black
  and white, and print it at an appropriate size on glossy photo paper. Cut out the photo and glue and/or sta-
  ple it into position on the finished prop. Passport photos were usually embossed or stamped over as well, to
  reduce the chance of forgery. 
  
  PUNCHES: Some of the props, like train tickets, streetcar transfers, and stock certificates, call for
  holes to be punched in the finished product. Although any ordinary hole punch will serve the purpose,
  the hole it makes is usually a little too big. It would be more authentic to get an actual ticket puncher,
  which are often available on eBay. If you don’t want to go that route, you can get a novelty paper
  puncher at an arts & crafts supply store which will punch a smaller hole, or a hole in a different shape
  than the standard round.
  FIXATIVE: The ink used in most inkjet printers is not waterproof, and can
  smudge or run. For props like these that will be handled extensively and may be
  splashed with blood or sweat or ectoplasm, it is a good idea to spray them with
  a fixative to help prevent smearing. We highly recommend Pressline clear fixa-
  tive spray: it has worked very well on all the test props we’ve made. There are
  several other brands available, however, and you can probably find at least one
  of them at a good art supply or office supply store. You should test the brand
  you buy before spraying a prop you want to keep. Some kinds of fixative on
  some kinds of paper actually bead up the ink and will ruin the prop rather than
  protecting it. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Call of Cthulhu (CoC) (BRP) [multi]/EXTRA/IRL Props/READ ME_Propmaking Tips.pdf