Merit Adventures Making The Cover

Merit Adventures Making The Cover

By Robert Musco & Rick Barrett

For collectors of Led Zeppelin memorabilia Rick Barrett’s Merit Adventures tabloid catalogs provided an outlet for many years for fans to purchase unique collectibles and rare items. Rick started creating catalogs in 1979 and ended the process in 2000. During that timeframe (and still today) Rick has brought to light, some amazing pieces, from promotional displays, autographed albums, to personal items once owned by members of the band, the list is quite extensive. Rick Barrett still deals in Led Zeppelin collectibles and is on Facebook as well as Ebay

In October 2018 Rick contacted me with news that when he was going through some boxes over the summer he discovered that he had saved 17 of the original “cover boards” utilized in the creation process of making his Merit Adventures catalogs. I was surprised that the cover boards had survived after so many years, as tragedy struck Rick in June of 2001 when tropical storm Alison hit destroying 29 boxes of old Merit Adventures files, and history of collecting in the Led Zeppelin hobby was lost forever.

As Rick Barrett explains “back then, we would literally paste up all of the catalog content onto 11″ by 14″ pieces of mat board (the kind of material used when framing items). The next step was to put tissue paper over each page and indicate for the printer what colors each part of the pages would be. We would then take all of those pages to the printer every other month. We’d sometimes stay up all night on Wednesday nights pasting up 16 to 32 boards, drop everything off at the printer on Thursday mornings, and then pick up a zillion printed catalogs on Friday morning to stuff into envelopes and mail out by Friday night. Delivery usually occurred the following Monday or Tuesday, even overseas, and orders would start flowing in like crazy”.

Rick explained how some of the boards have survived after being utilized. “The printer would give us back our pages when we picked up the catalogs, and frequently those pages either got used again a few times (like the Page/Plant Tour items) or they would get stripped clean so they would be ready for the next project. Yet I kept 15 of the cover pages personally for myself; I felt it would be cool to have an archive of them, to really preserve some history. My hope was to sometime frame each one and put them on the walls of the office, yet time never permitted that project to get off the ground”.

Overall the cover boards are in nice condition. While some are one piece prints, others are cut and paste motifs onto the board to create the cover page image. Rick offered insight as to why some of the cover boards are single pieces “I began using QuarkXpress software to design parts of the catalog (and most often the front pages), the entire 11″ x 14″ cover image could be printed out on one large piece of paper on this special big printer we bought. Those are especially nice, crisp versions of what is on the front of my catalogs”.

Rick had these 17 boards set aside since the 1990’s and the year 2000 when the final Merit Adventures catalog was sent out to customers. I was fortunate enough to be contacted by Rick and offered the chance to save a piece of Led Zeppelin collecting history by purchasing 16 of the 17 saved cover boards. Rick did save one board for himself. “I kept ONE cover board for myself, as I wanted one souvenir here and chose my favorite cover. It’s back in some box now, yet I believe it’s Zep-147…one of the annual ones, with a cover which looks like a newspaper. I actually copied the exact layout of the Houston Chronicle’s front page for that one! :)”

What follows are images of 16 of the 17 known surviving cover boards. All are in mock up black and white. In addition, to 15 of the catalog covers, is the special thank you note found on the inside of the final catalog (168) Rick wrote “thanking them for years of terrific interest and support”. The front covers are of Led Zeppelin catalogs Zep-152, plus Zep-155 through Zep-168, the final Merit Adventures catalog. Ever onward…..

Catalog 152: