Yesterday’s Technology . . . Today!
Vin Crosbie allowed these excellent photographs to be used on Metal Type.
Vin said: “These photographs detail the production of a 10,000-circulation daily newspaper in Connecticut on Friday, March 17, 1961. I found these slides among those of my father, the paper’s general manager. The Chronicle has been owned by my family since 1877. I’m the fifth generation and the sixth is already working there.
Many thanks to Robin Kenworthy for sending in this article, originally published in a book called “Typographical Printing Surfaces” shortly after 1907. The Graphotype was an early rival to the Monotype system, but had the keyboard and casting system in the one machine.
Robin has a museum-worthy collection of machines, type and matrices as well as an extensive library on the subject of letterpress.
Tony Shaffstall from Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, got in touch with Metal Type to give us details of the Shaffstall Transistor Mat Detector that his father (Everett G Shaffstall) invented.
Tony sent in the patent application (10 pages with some nice illustrations) dating from 1960 and a 1965 copy of the Installation Instructions and Trouble Diagnosis (72 pages).
Chris Johnson contacted Metal Type in November 2007 saying that he was an engineer working for Express Gifts, part of Findel PLC and had been looking after 3 working Intertype Monarchs for the past 11 years. The company had recently acquired a refurbished Intertype C4 to bring the count of working linecasters up to 4! The machines are used to produce slugs of people’s names to manufacture personalised gift items.
The machines all have a Decitek Floppy Disk Drive operating a Fairchild Teletypesetting unit. Chris very kindly sent in the following photographs.
Alan Runfeldt runs a 1930s era print shop in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, USA. As well as traditional letterpress printing Alan rescues, restores and passes on old letterpress equipment such Kelsey Excelsior Platen Presses, Chandler & Price Platen Presses and Vandercook & Challenge Proof presses. He also collects, catalogs, uses and some times passes on fonts of hand-set foundry type and wood type as well as the cases and cabinets to keep them in.
I don’t think this press is in Alan’s collection, his website says the press is in Philadelphia. I had to include the picture, though, it’s got to be the oldest litho press I’ve seen.
Tom Bailey sent in this picture of Norman Barnes retiring from his job as “The Printer”, early 1970s.
Tom Bailey said: “To my mind the setting of type was an art form and having spent many hours setting five point type, visually letter-spacing said type for advertisements to be published in newspapers; actually cutting up cigarette papers and bus tickets to use in the spacing. Remember I was not the only one, I had to learn from somebody.
There are six pages of Yorkshire Evening Press photos on Metal Type. Check the “Related Pages” menu to see the rest.
In October 2007 the Yorkshire Evening Press, based in York in the UK, celebrated 125 years of production by delving into their archives and publishing a special souvenir supplement.
Deep in the countryside of Wiltshire, in the UK, lies the disused World War Two Airbase RAF Wroughton. In six huge, decaying hangars named in typical military style: L1, L2, etc. lie thousands of the modern world’s greatest treasures, guarded round-the-clock by British Army veterans.
The Airbase acts as a storage facility for the Science Museum. The Museum’s public face in South Kensington can only show eight per cent of their massive collection.
George Finn, an Australian Linotype mechanic, sent in this photograph and details of the restoration project.
This is the oldest machine I have ever worked on. Checking the serial number (22971) against shipping dates, I find that it was shipped in the first half of 1918.
“Stop the presses! Make over the front page!” Typewriters swing into action, Linotype machines click, compositors’ fingers fly, and cold metal quickly becomes hot news!
Type metals of “Wilkes” brand, produced solely by the Glidden-owned Metals Refining Company, are used in the make-up of typical American newspapers. They are used in printing magazines distributed to millions. Many of the printed pieces you receive … the books you read … are printed with “Wilkes” type metal, the accepted national standard of fine quality.