OBA Series 1

LSD blotter traces it’s roots to the late 1960’s, shortly after LSD became illegal. At that time, the laws required that anyone caught with LSD be charged by weight, not dose. As the preferred delivery method of the day was a sugar cube, a person caught with one dose of LSD on a sugar cube would be charged the same as someone with an equal weight of pure LSD crystal. As a result, blotter paper became the new method of distribution. Originally, blotter was dosed by carefully dropping liquid LSD onto paper in a grid formation. Later, the paper was prepared by printing a grid on the paper, then soaking the whole sheet of paper in the liquid LSD. This process of creating doses with grid paper evolved into using paper that was perforated along the lines of a grid so that doses could be torn apart easily. As blotter became more commonplace, many dealers began to stamp the sheet with a rubber stamp, while the more enterprising had paper printed with professional designs. Thus began a kind of branding that still exists today.

Vintage blotter art collecting has grown by leaps and bounds in recent years. Shows such as “Cure of Souls”, held at the Psychedelic Solution in New York in 1988 and “Timothy Leary in Wonderland”, held at Artrock in 1995 started the hobby. Some collectors enjoy signed blotter art while others simply enjoy the fantastic art and history. How you collect blotter art is up to you, but we would be remiss without saying that it looks incredible framed.

Today, blotter art is divided into two categories; vintage and vanity.

Genuine vintage blotter art is generally quite scarce and most of the more popular pieces were created by Mark McCloud, who was twice charged with possession of LSD, but acquitted both times. Many classic designs exist in this category and famous artists such as R. Crumb, Alex Gray, Thom Lyttle and Alexander Shulgin created pieces in this genre. Much of the “vintage” blotter offered by dealers and on eBay is fake, so care should be taken when considering a purchase. Pieces signed by Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey are quite scarce and we have seen fake signatures of these also. Every signed piece we sell was signed in 1995 at the Artrock show and was obtained directly from the ex-owner of Artrock. We back up these signatures with a 100% guarantee of authenticity.

Vanity blotter is a term we use to describe most of the blotter seen on eBay and blotter websites. It is created solely to be sold (or in some cases dipped), but the key is that it is mass produced and, while it can be beautiful, it rarely goes up in value.

Needless to say, none of the blotter we sell has been dipped. It is art for arts sake.