The paper is devoted to the unrealized project of fundamental history of paper in Russia which P. A. Kartavov tried to implement. The result of this work is not only a collection of samples of historical papers but also a huge core of information on the history of the Russian paper industry. Kartavov's views on the ways to study the history of papermaking are clarified by archival materials: the draft of the letter to the Institute of books and script, as well as the fragments of the report by P. A. Kartavov, which was made in 1932 in the section of bibliophiles of Leningrad society of collectors.