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.
Category: Stories/Anecdotes
The New Apprentice in 1904
A poem written by Frank Granger.
I like this printing job I just got.
But there are things I wish were not.
The Proofreader’s Nighrmare
An amusing poem written by Frank Granger.
all the sentences started with lower case.
The 3 em indent was way two much space.
The Futuria type was very, very bold,
Also not the face the customer was sold.
Printing Pravda, 1934
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.
The Matrix Engineer
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.
“Banging In” at Spicers
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.
The Bumpy Road
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?
My Last Hurrah
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!
The Island of San Serriffe
Two spoof April Fool’s day articles that appeared in the Guardian (UK) newspaper. Many thanks to Ernest Bray for submitting these.
Guide to the Republic
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.
Letterpress Limericks
A collection of print-related limericks sent in by Greg Fischer, who spent 42 years working on the Trentonian newspaper in Trenton, New Jersey, USA.
A machinist who came from Timor
Changed magazines often before.
But the lock wasn’t tight
To the left, but was right.
And he dumped mats all over the floor.