Yesterday’s Technology . . . Today!
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.
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 Once upon a time they were a numerous tribe; today they are as outdated as movable type in newspaper headings.
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.
Dan Williams remembers the inauguration of the Elrod machine at his father’s commercial type shop.
ANY PRINT SHOP of the letterpress era needed loads of spacing material. My dad’s type shop was no exception.
This short piece from Merchant of Alphabets describes the brand new Pravda printing plant in 1934.
ON THE very first day of my arrival Gene Garin, with pride and enthusiasm, took me out to the new Pravda plant – the dream come true of their deliberations four years ago.
How a Linotype matrix is made from Merchant of Alphabets by Reginald Orcutt.
FAR MORE than the layman may find it easy to appreciate, every good type letter is fraught with human spirit. Whether its essence stems from the Humanists of the Renaissance, or comes from the artistic expression of to-morrow morning, its beauty and clarity – and thus its legibility and function – stem from the genius and personality of the artist who designed it and the craftsman who brought it into being.
Roy Bowker’s story of the possibly unique “banging in” ceremony at Spicers, London.
SO WHERE do I start? Well my first insight to the printing game was at secondary modern school when the teacher asked if anybody was interested in joining a printing class that was being started. My hand went up basically because a friend of mine had volunteered.
Bob Turner’s second story for this site is the fascinating story of his print career to date.
HERE I sit in beautiful Dunedin, Pinellas County, Florida. 68 years old, semi-retired, working part-time for a direct mail operation where I make plates for the offset presses, run an MBO folder and bore the kids with my stories about the “good?” old days. How did I get here?
Bob Turner’s certainly kept up with the times. Still working part-time in the print industry at the age of 68.
We had to pay a scrap dealer to haul it away after I disassembled it. Sad!
Two spoof April Fool’s day articles that appeared in the Guardian (UK) newspaper. Many thanks to Ernest Bray for submitting these.
Population: (1973 census) 1,782,724 consisting of approx. Europeans and mixed race 640,000; Flongs 574,000 Creoles 271,000; Malaysians 1,17,000; Arabs 92,000; others 88,000.