Please CLICK on the image to download a pdf of the entire double-sided (two pages total) sales document

The information printed on this double-sided card is probably the very earliest issued for Eames Contract Storage. It is dated 1960 yet Herman Miller did not begin marketing this system until 1961.

Vintage Eames connoisseurs know the ECS units for the characteristic Eames Office attention to detail. The shelf brackets and door handles are "Zinc die cast" solid-- they have a wonderful heft, and the areas on the inside, such as the coat hanging device (an evolved form of the HANG-IT-ALL), are coated in a beautiful, practical, industrial strength, grey rubberized paint. There's another noteworthy quality: great care was selected in picking beautiful, richly patterned grained wood panels for the plywood facing. The Eames Office specified "natural birch, premium face veneer" and as a result these units radiate a golden glow.

Eames Contract Storage consisted of storage, study and sleeping units. The users, the "guests" were considered in all details, ALL of the users, or "guests."  In a related HM document, published by the Special Products Division of HM, there are some pointed comments regarding the ECS: "DEPARTMENT OF SANITATION PLEASE NOTE: Heavy mesh drawers and shelves permit constant ventilation through clothing and other items stored in these units. HOUSEKEEPERS PLEASE NOTE: The panels of the system do not touch the walls nor the ceiling nor the floor."   The Eames Office understood one big group of end users -- college students -- all too well.

From Eames Design: The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames (authors: John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart & Ray Eames): "...it was installed in dormitories on college campuses--including Purdue University, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. It was also installed at the Charlotte (North Carolina) YMCA and the Zeller Clinic in Peoria, Illinois. Though the system had great potential as a dormitory solution, federal support for such facilities was halted, and as more students began living off-campus in the 1960s, the need for new dorms declined drastically. As a result, sales declined and ECS was discontinued in 1969."