Part of Metal Type’s Printing Advice section, here Phil talks about printing posters.<\/p>\n
A big part of our business used to be showcards and or posters.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>At the very first part of my apprenticeship, we printed all posters in 22 x 28 inches on plain posting bristol as compared to writing bristol. It was not all that long into my career when most customers would not pay for this large size and all the posters then reverted to half sheets of 14 x 22 inches and then much later to 12 x 18 inches.<\/span> These posters to be imprinted were of every size and style under the sun and hard to do because everyone wanted the largest type that would fit into the space available. \u00a020 \u00a030 \u00a0and even 40 line type was commonly used. \u00a0Also there was always a rush and payment was always iffy. \u00a0\u00a0The printers here soon learned to demand payment up front or perhaps C.o.D. or both. Travelling shows were terrible at paying their debts.<\/span> We eventually stopped doing any of the travelling show work because they would not pay and when the season was over they just all disappeared.<\/span><\/p>\n P.S. There was a full time largish shop here in Saskatchewan that pretty much printed only show cards and in multi colour too. The owner hand carved large and very large images (and became Canada wide famous for this ability) \u00a0of circus images on big sheets of bass plywood and sold these posters continent wide. His prices were extremely low.\u00a0 His shop was in Estevan, Sask. and the name was King Show Print and his name was Andy King. He had two sons who took over the business, but it closed some time ago. I still have one or three posters from this company.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>But I am getting ahead of myself. I have never mentioned the imprinting of posters. \u00a0And this used to be a very big and busy market. <\/span>
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\n<\/span>There has always been a place for travelling shows and dance bands and military bands, \u00a0(Susa played here in Sask. some many long years ago.) \u00a0And all of these shows or acts had preprinted posters leaving time, date and place blank and they would send blank posters in advance of their performance to their local agent or ticket seller to be imprinted with this information.\u00a0 We had for many years a professional ticket selling company here in Regina called Gilles Agencies and they sold tickets for most people or entertainment companies who performed in Regina.<\/span><\/p>\n40 Line Type<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/span>For some strange reason the imprinting of these posters was very competitive and the job was always sought after.\u00a0 This most likely was because there was so little work here in the west and so many printers.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>We did get a few of these poster imprinting jobs, but not too many due mostly to all the perils such work entailed. <\/span>
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\n<\/span>We did on many occasion print big batches of posters for more local country bands \u00a0\u00a0with the time, date and place left blank and the users just filled in the information with black crayon markers. I do so clearly remember a county band here in Sask. called Smiling Johnny and His Band. Hah. Smiling nothing. This man did not smile and was very hard to get along with.<\/span>
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\n<\/span>I write this mainly to let younger printers know that such work existed. \u00a0<\/span>
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\n<\/span>Even when I was just starting my full time work at 17 years of age, Andy King was an old man. \u00a0His sons were my Dad’s age. \u00a0I met and briefly chummed with one of the grandsons.<\/span><\/p>\n