Frank Romano Shows us the Unitype - video

[Dave Hughes]

In the latest What They Th!nk video Frank shows us the Museum of Printing's Thorne Unitype machine, which he describes as "The Rarest Typesetting Machine of Them All."


https://d3a577syzx0or3.cloudfront.net/video/2025-09-frank-unitype.mp4

Frank describes the Thorne Unitype, one of the earliest attempts to mechanize typesetting. It competed with the Linotype. There are only four left in the world. Linotype took them in trade for a Linotype but then destroyed them so they would not come back on the used equipment market.

You can see the Unitype, along with other early typesetting machines, here on Metal Type: Early Typesetting Machines.

There was also a picture of one on this page of illustrations from the Ottmar Mergenthaler Museum: Early Typesetting Machines 2.

There's also some great information on this Forum including a diagram of the keyboard and a 40-page PDF about the machine: The Thorne Typesetting Machine 1894.