Downsizing Brings Valleyford-Area Man To Longtime Passion With Prints

Last September, Dick Bossler felt the sting of downsizing.

The 44-year-old lost his job at Pegasus Gold Corp., along with more than a dozen fellow employees. But he never cursed his pink slip.

Bossler used it as his ticket out.

After 25 years in the cutthroat corporate world, the former computer systems planner now works out of his Valleyford-area home. He has a studio looking out over acres of snowy fields.

He spends his days collecting and cataloging old prints from the 1800s to the 1940s, everything from maps and advertisements to plants and children’s stories.

Using an Exacto knife, he carefully removes each print from the book or magazine it was published in, saving the book so he’ll have proof of its history. He mats and frames the prints, then sells them, along with any interesting background information he can dig up.

“It’s something that gives pleasure to people,” said Bossler, who applied for his business license three days after losing his job at Pegasus. “I see Prints with a Past as my sanity job. I want to make this into my post-corporate career.”

He’s sold a couple dozen prints so far. A dog lover from the Tri-Cities bought a 1936 Black and White Scotch Whiskey advertisement - featuring black and white Scotties like her own. A couple bought an old steamship ad boasting “the fast route to the Orient.” They planned to give it to their son, who was in love with a woman from Asia. A woman whose father had done missionary work in Sweden bought him a print of an old Swedish log house.

Bossler began his print collection 19 years ago, as a newlywed with a new house and too many empty walls. A job transplanted him from Pennsylvania to Valleyford in 1991. After years in the suburbs, he and his wife found a home with privacy, 10 acres of land and plenty of space for a framing studio. Bossler now has more than 3,000 prints in his collection. He’s found them in old book stores, antique shops and estate sales, both in the United States and abroad. His corporate job kept him on the road 60 to 70 percent of the time, and gave him many opportunities to search for new prints.

On a trip to London last December, he found a seven-volume set of botany prints dating back to the 1830s. The old college books are beaten up and worn, but most of the colorful pictures remain intact. Many were meticulously hand-painted with watercolors.

“You have to look for the gems,” he said.

Bossler plans to travel to the East Coast five or six times, and to Europe at least twice, searching for prints this year. He’s creating a data base, which will allow him to search his collection using key words. He currently displays a sampling on his Internet site, located at www.printspast.com.

Working out of his rural home, Bossler views the Internet as a crucial tool for expanding his business. He plans to register his web site with some Internet search engines, so potential customers can find him just by typing in key words.

He’ll market his prints throughout the United States and beyond. If he grows out of his Valleyford studio, he may lease some retail space in Spokane.

“I could see this as a business I could retire with,” Bossler said.

And it might never have happened, he said, without that severance pay.

, DataTimes