
Thanks to Metal Type contributor Graeme How for sending in this advertisement from the 1930s.
Yesterday’s Technology . . . Today!
Historical items

Thanks to Metal Type contributor Graeme How for sending in this advertisement from the 1930s.

Many thanks to Anthony Shaffstall (the son of the inventor of this device) for sending in this 1960 advertising material.
Said Tony: “When I was a kid I accompanied my dad to many newspapers in the area where he would, late in the evening, install these devices on the Mergs. I was in grade school and didn’t understand what he did but I was mesmerised watching those machines run — still am.”

The illustrations on this page are from the Ottmar Mergenthaler Museum, digitised by Doug Wilson.
You can read more about how Doug came across these images on the Metal Type forum here: Linotype: The Book.

The illustrations on this page are from the Ottmar Mergenthaler Museum, digitised by Doug Wilson.
You can read more about how Doug came across these images on the Metal Type forum here: Linotype: The Book.

Many thanks to Rocky Baranowski, from Arizona USA, for sending in these pictures from his collection.
These gifts would have been given away at trade shows and exhibitions early in the 20th Century.

Thanks to Graeme Howe for sending in these recruitment ads, from the end of 1953.
I would imagine in those days the first one to apply would get the job, and earn enough money to live on. How times have changed!

Many thanks to Chris Greenhill for sending in his grandfather’s collection of British Print Trade Union membership cards.
His grandfather Joseph Henry Davis was born in 1884 and entered the print industry at the age of 14. You can read more about his career in London and view his indenture document here: 1898 Indentures.

Many thanks to Chris Greenhill for sending in details of his grandfather’s long career in the print industry, along with his Indenture document, which was signed in 1898.
Chris says: “I gleaned the following from my grandfather’s last surviving daughter, my aunt.