The post Whitcombe & Tombs, NZ, Advertisement appeared first on Metal Type.

“All letterpress apprentice Printers had to attend the school once a year for two weeks during the first three years of their apprenticeship.

“No student loans in those days. Travel, accommodation, food etc was courtesy of the New Zealand Government.”

The post New Zealand School of Printing, 1971 appeared first on Metal Type.

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!

The post 1953 Recruitment Ads appeared first on Metal Type.

Machinery In The Modern Printing Plant of the ‘Northland Age’ –

TOP left: The Klischograph Photo Engraving Machine. This machine played a big
part in the engraving of blocks for this magazine. Right: The Leitz Enlarger in our
modern photographic department. LOWER right: 2 typesetting machines. Left:
The thirteen and a half ton Cossar printing machine on which the Northland Age is
printed twice weekly. BOTTOM left: One of our Heidelberg letterpress machines
used for the many printing jobs required in your business – letterheads,
statements, docket books, wedding invites, catalogues etc.

Top left: Trimming paper on the guillotine. Top right: Keeping the accounts straight.
Centre: The Linotype machines. Bottom left: A printing machine for small work.
Bottom right: The machine which prints ‘The Northlander.’

Left Panel reads: We Are Printers of Everything. Right Panel: Let The News Do That Next Job.
Centre Panel:
“The News” Printing Department has the machines, and men to look after all your
printing requirements. It costs nothing to get a quote.

NEWS LTD
Box 1 KAIKOHE Phone 321
“The Northlander” was printed in Kaikohe by “The News”

The post Printing the Northland Age, 1962 appeared first on Metal Type.

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.

The post Letterpress Coffee Table appeared first on Metal Type.

A regular contributor to Metal Type, Graeme How,  got in touch to tell me about his local newspaper, The Wairoa Star, celebrating its centenary.

We have five pages of articles about the Wairoa Star sent in by Graeme, check the “Related Pages” menu to see the others.

Said Graham: “I started my apprenticeship there in January 1969 and retired in December 2016.”

Here Graeme tells us how production of the newspaper has changed over the years.

Graeme added: “I still do the odd day’s work there filling in.

“It’s amazing how technology has progressed from black and white to the modern era of colour graphics and photographs. To think I started with hot type and ended up operating an internet based newspaper production system.”

The post Wairoa Star Centenary September 2021 appeared first on Metal Type.

The Press Gang team that work as volunteers in the print shop in The Settler Building at Taranaki Pioneer Museum in Stratford NZ had a great win over Queen’s Birthday week-end 2019 with the first composed line being cast on their recently-acquired Model C Nebitype line casting machine (Serial No. 78).

It was donated to us by The Printing Museum, Wellington, NZ in 2018. From the beginning of restoration of the machine Rob Clarkson has been at the forefront although there’s been a handful of other people that have helped along the way, notably John Nicholson, with grateful assistance from Doug Holland.

Alan Penfold and me helped on occasions by scratching our heads and passing spanners to Rob whilst doing our best impressions of Mad Scientists. One of the biggest hurdles in the machine’s restoration has been finding manuals for it. Bill Nairn from The Printing Museum in Wellington has helped with a series of loan and copy diagrams and brochures. These were of some use but they mostly refer to the later model Ultra-E machine (of which we have one – also to be restored).

From the titbits of anecdotal stories on printing circles web pages around the world I doubt very much if there is another working model of this Nebitype machine anywhere. Pioneer should well be proud they have this, as well as the recently-restored Schelter & Giesecke platen printing press ex Eltham Argus, found in a dump by Rob and restored primarily by him, again with help from John Nicholson making geared cogs for it.

Rob says there is still a little “tweaking” to be done, and we have a small “mouthpiece” heating issue to deal with but we feel the Nebitype is now well on the way to being another working asset for the Settler Building. It will enable us to cast larger sizes of type than the Linotype machine can. I’m sure as the months progress our team will learn more of the abilities of this amazing machine built in Italy we believe some time in the 1950’s.

We used standard Ludlow mats with the Nebitype Ludlow stick and changed the casting head to the correct head for Ludlow mats. We can see how confusing it would have been for folk to get the right casting head-stick-matrice combination, and why how so easily one could get a “splash” as we did once or twice.

The post Model C Nebitype Restoration appeared first on Metal Type.

Says William: “My claim to fame is that since 2009, there is finally a printer in the heritage village of Rockley, mid west NSW. And it is a Yorkshire born tradesman that’s done it. My wife’s historical research tells us that I am the only one, ever!

While I’ve reduced my student intake to only the most likely students, I still do train in the Art. Students need to go through a rigorous testing, as I did so many years ago, to learn from me.

Real Tradesmen & Women

I might even claim that being an original tradesman, my shop is truly first generation teaching, and not a University knock-off pretending to teach. I might even claim that my classes are comprehensive and can produce real tradesmen and women and I believe the only real school in NSW.

Amberly and Florent were the makers, Two Lands. I thank them continually for the time they spent making this video.”

The post Pressed Letters Printing, Australia – Video appeared first on Metal Type.

Says George: “The video was extracted from a video tape I was given when I retired in 1989. It was used to give visitors an overview of newspaper production prior to taking a tour of the plant. Sorry the quality is not the best.

The last page printed using hot metal was in March 1984.

Hope you find it interesting.”

The post Automated Typesetting, 1971 appeared first on Metal Type.

While the recent increase in public interest in letterpress printing is welcome, it would seem to be centered around the “craft and artisan” areas, not so much larger, more industrial equipment.

The article reperoduced below, from the Taranaki News, suffers from the usual journalistic faux pas of describing every piece of machinery associated with the printing industry as a “printing press.”

The post Preservation in NZ appeared first on Metal Type.