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!
1953 Recruitment Ads
Category: Location
British Print Trade Union Cards 1924-1945
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.
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.
Printing the Northland Age, 1962
Many thanks to Graeme How, from New Zealand for sending in this illustrated article.
Machinery In The Modern Printing Plant of the ‘Northland Age’ –
Rochester, NY Newspapers
Many thanks to Bill Westland for sending in these great photographs. They were taken at the Rochester Times-Union and Rochester Democrat and Chronicle newspapers before computerisation.
A well-dressed Linotype operator
Letterpress Coffee Table
Long-time Metal Type contributor Graeme How, from New Zealand, has found a great way of displaying his old letterpress memorabilia.
Says Graeme: “I have a typecase with type and also some printing blocks, Intertype border slides and mats which I rescued when The Wairoa Star changed to offset in 1977. I was having a cleanout recently and decided to build a coffee table using what I had saved. The glass table-top had to be removed so the reflections would not be photographed.
Further Reading
Check the “Related Pages” menu for details and pictures of Neotype linecasters.
Information about Russian linecasting machines is pretty scarce on the internet, but the Metal Type Forum has some real gems.
Neotype Linecasters
Check the “Related Pages” menu for further reading on Russian linecasters.
The following pictures and descriptions come from an un-dated glossy brochure produced by Neotype, West Germany.
Further Reading
There is some lively discussion about these machines on the Forum.
There are even pictures of some of these machines “in the wild.”
Universa
“The latest development in the field of modern setting machine technology” is the heading on the cover of the leaflet promoting the Universa linecaster, one of the very few such machines to be built incorporating a bank of six magazines and which was the impressive leader in the range of “New Line” machines produced during the 1960s by Mergenthaler Linotype GmbH of Frankfurt.
As this 3000kg giant was intended only for manual operation, its casting speed was 8 to 12 lines per minute, and it could be fitted with a mixture of split 72- and 90-channel magazines in various combinations (three of each; two 90s/four 72s; one 90/five 72s, etc) as circumstances demanded. The keyboard automatically adjusted itself according to which type of magazine was in use. Elevation and fanning of the magazines was an electrohydraulic operation to facilitate the mixing operation from four adjacent magazines.