Category: Australia/NZ

Metal Type stalwart Graeme How sent in this article from the Wairoa Star, New Zealand.

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

George Finn tells an amusing story about a Canadian Linotype salesman in the 1960s.

FOLLOWING Mergenthaler’s takeover of England’s Linotype and Machinery (L&M) and Canadian Linotype in 1909, L&M set up a division of their press sales and services in the same premises as Canadian Linotype. However they operated independently of one another. Read the Full Article . . .

Nice story from George Finn, explaining how a bit of composing-room ingenuity solved a problem for the Sydney Morning Herald.

BACK in the early 1970’s the Sydney Morning Herald’s presses could only produce 120 broadsheet pages on a collect run. Read the Full Article . . .

Don Hauser’s fascinating story of a lifetime in the print industry.

Taken from Don Hauser’s book “Printers of the Streets and Lanes of Melbourne” this is the story of Don’s lifetime career in print from 1949 to the present day. Read the Full Article . . .

George Finn tells how he started out in the trade and proves that you can’t judge a letter by the envelope!

IN APRIL 1948, when I was 15, my brother, who was a compositor at The Wagga Daily Advertiser, in New South Wales, got me a job as office boy. After six months I was indentured to serve a six year apprenticeship, as a Linotype Mechanic. Read the Full Article . . .

Many thanks to Graeme How for sending in this article, which appeared in the Centennial Edition of the “Weekly News” on November 27, 1963 – the last edition of the magazine appeared in 1971.

HE was one of the last of the old tramp compositors-cum-linotype operators-cum printers. Once upon a time they were a numerous tribe; today they are as outdated as movable type in newspaper headings. Read the Full Article . . .

Les Smith, from Lake Macquarie, Newcastle, Australia sent in this amusing anecdote about casting ingots.

HOT METAL shops were great recyclers of type metal and usually hidden in a less attractive location would be the equipment to melt the metal, skim off the dross and cast the ingots. Read the Full Article . . .

Keith Prentice tells us about his career installing and repairing Lionotype and Intertypes around New Zealand.

IN 1948 I was indentured as a Linotype mechanic apprentice at The Otago Daily Times in Dunedin, New Zealand and trained on Model 8 & 14 Linotypes as well as Intertype C3 , C4, and G4-4sm machines. I also operated an Elrod strip caster. Read the Full Article . . .

Newspaper Compositor Graeme How of the Wairoa Star, Wairoa, New Zealand takes us back to his first day on a Linotype. Check out Graeme’s other Wairoa Star stories in the “Related Pages” menu.

IT WAS late 1969. After a year of getting used to the layout of the Californian hand set type cases, I was sat down in front of one of our linotypes. Read the Full Article . . .

Arthur Johnson tells us about his career and the work he is still doing with Hot Metal in Gulgong, NSW, Australia.

I STARTED my apprenticeship in 1953 at Winn & Co in Sydney Australia a medium sized shop with 2 Linotypes a Model 8 electric pot and a !4 with a gas pot. Read the Full Article . . .