In Australia and on the Gold Coast this weeken

[Mechanic]

If you are lucky enough to be on Australia's Gold Coast this weekend. Please drop by.

[John Cornelisse]

This is one email I got from an another Australian Jan/John Setek, he had a lot of Monotype:

Hi John, I have been reunited with a museum to which I donated a complete letterpress printery 30 years ago, and they gifted back to me a tiny British made hand press, the ADNA 5"x3". The museum is focused on stationary engines but not letterpress plant so the caretaker is looking for a new home for the collection.
At the same time as a group we visited the Maritime Museum of printing which too is closing and looking for a home for a vast letterpress machinery collection.
I was lucky to be allowed a preliminary viewing, and at this time I salvaged an 8pt. Monotype Mould, regrettably there were no other Monotype components. On the other hand there is a Linotype and a big library of mats.

Jan

Hi John, good to hear from you.
There are two museums of printing on unhappy terms with management and are about to be scrapped. I saved an 8pt Monotype Mould but no Monotypes. The Linotype at the Maritime museum has a label attached by Govt. health and safety effectively destroying the machine. But unbeknown to them there are fully trained and qualified mechanics still alive to day and, two such volunteers have stepped forward to save the caster.
Two museums will become one at a new site with new private owners and an incorporated name - that is if the gods are with us.

My old Intertype Caster is running being cared for by a newspaper man named George Finn. I am no longer involved, but I like to see it.

One location is 50 km away a 100 km round trip and the Maritime Museum 80 km so 160 km too far for weekend trips for me today; twenty years ago I was doing it with no wife!

My age is against me - in Australia young artists do not want advice from a 70 year old. They have their own ideas and it does not involve small type, it is usually the word "FUCK" in big letters.

At the museum at Pimpama they placed several cabinets if type in a leaky shed with a dirt floor and allowed all the type cases to rot into sawdust, vermin and yellow clay.
A volunteer shovelled the mess into buckets and they gave me two rectangular galley trays to comment on. No commercial printer would touch it!

Today we are going to the movies

Jan

It looks not all nice at the Australian continent....

[Mechanic]

Hi John,

Yes I know John Setek, he is a friend of mine. The Intertype and the printing press you see in the background were donated by him.