Some type of type metal

[L Ross]

So I was packaging up some type metal, and being well below zero I didn't feel like uncovering a 55 gal. drum. The latched lid of which is a horizontal surface in the shooting shack. As such, it is piled with shooting bags, rests, pens, pencils, some paper targets etc.

I opted for some type metal that is in cardboard boxes supported by plastic milk crates in another shed. Joshua should like this too as I only had to move a large saw vice made of wood designed to hold the blades of one and two man cross cut saws, to get down to the milk crate. Oh, that and drag some 5 gal. buckets of ingots out of the way so I could reach into the milk crate boxes.

I had cut the bottom off a off a reinforced plastic bag that cracked corn comes in and used that to put into the Flat Rate Box. I started digging out type metal and it doesn't look exactly like the old time Lino-type. This stuff is quite shiny and has some spacers and some funny blocks. I saw some obvious printing on one piece and reading it backwards it says, Potato Chips 59¢. The old lino I remember in my other various stashes reminded me more of news print type.

So you type misers, is this more likely to be mono-type?

 

[RicinYakima]

I think you are correct. Linotype is one use and remelted, where as mono-, electro-, etc. were for more layouts, like advertisements.

 

[Ian]

In reality it could be anything. I got a box of type letters and symbols about 1" wide by different thicknesses, it tested 8 bhn. Should have been monotype and hard as coffin nails.

Linotype in its natural habitat exists only in three forms: pigs with the loop end, molten, or as a printing plate as produced by the machine.

 

[RicinYakima]

There is a Printing Press Museum in the town just south of Yakima. They have types of presses that you see in the old Westerns, a letter press, both sliding table (a proof press) and rotation table press. Since I am interested in lead alloys I questioned the curator on what was used. Before the "hot" keyboard presses were invented, 1890's, like the Lin-O-Type, type was very soft. Type was hand set from letters cast in a mould and cut off one at a time with a knife. Broadsheets, wanted posters and advertisements, were set with lead, wood, copper and linoleum pictures and drawings. Soft type was easier to use with hand operated presses.