The records are files of Robert C. Sahlin (1896-1967), a member of Lukenweld's sales staff. Sahlin joined the Lukens Steel Company as a sales engineer on October 15, 1928, and was transferred to Lukenweld sales on February 9, 1938. From December 1941 to September 6, 1945, he was manager of sales. He was then an outside salesman for Lukenweld until his retirement in 1954.

Sahlin's files record his dealings with Lukenweld's customers and his other activities as a salesman. Most Lukenweld orders were custom work, fabricating individual machine parts, so there was frequent interplay between sales and engineering staff. Most of the orders are for dryer rolls and other components of papermaking machinery, although Lukenweld also manufactured parts for ships, diesel engine blocks and frames, and bulk processing equipment. The bulk of the files cover the World War II period and postwar conversion. After 1945, there was an extensive foreign business with Europe, the British Commonwealth, and South America.

There are also many files that record the mechanics of salesmanship in the producer goods industries, including sales reports, minutes of sales meetings, bulletins, and forms for recording contacts and developing prospects. Sahlin attended trade shows, particularly in the metal and papermaking industries, and dispensed company literature and registry cards.

Among other items of note are correspondence with the War Production Board and a poem satirizing wartime red tape; photographs of Lukenweld products and personnel, including snapshots of an early test run of the Burlington ZEPHYR; and a 1952 report on the ferrous metals industries of Yugoslavia for the Mutual Security Agency.