Thanks to everyone who attended this year’s APHA conference at the Huntington. In the months and days leading up to it, we represented the theme, The Black Art & Printers’ Devils: The Magic, Mysticism, and Wonders of Printing History, with a logotype that individuals always asked about. Did it have something to do with Prince? Aleister Crowley? International currency? [Read more]
Type designer and MacArthur Foundation Award Recipient, at his home in Cambridge MA, 2010. (Photo by Aynsley Floyd/The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)
APHA New England is delighted to announce that Matthew Carter will present APHA’s Lieberman Lecture on Saturday, December 3, 2016, at 2:00 PM at the Museum of Printing in its new location at 15 Thornton Avenue in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Please RSVP. [Read more]
The platen and hose of the James Franklin Press in Newport, RI.
This is the fourth in a series of posts that will appear throughout the year.
The term “wooden common press” is fairly self-explanatory. It is a press, and it is made of wood. Before the invention of the iron hand press, all presses were common presses, and all of them were wooden. Since January, my teammates and I at Rochester Institute of Technology have been designing an eighteenth-century wooden common press. What proved to be one of our greatest challenges—and one of our favorite adventures—was the search for wood from which to build the press. [Read more]
Here’s a question tuned to the theme of our upcoming conference The Black Art & Printers’ Devils at the Huntington Library. Perhaps an APHA member or friend of APHA has knowledge about this particular uppercase “M” that featured in an 1890 book of poetry privately printed at the Chiswick Press in London. Has anyone seen this spooky “M” in other publications?
Enhanced screengrab from the HathiTrust copy of Sand Key (anon., Chiswick Press, 1890).
From the Exlibris Listserv:
We at Oak Knoll are very sad to announce the death of Bob Fleck on September 22 after a brief illness. Bob abandoned his job as a chemical engineer in 1976 to start Oak Knoll Books, focusing on books about books, book collecting, book arts, the history of printing, and bibliography. Two years later, he started publishing in the same field, beginning with a reprint of Bigmore and Wyman’s A Bibliography of Printing. 2016 marks the fortieth anniversary year of a company that has made an immeasurable contribution to the history of the book. It is also the nineteenth edition of the bi-annual Oak Knoll Fest, which will take place as scheduled September 30-October 2, as Bob wished. Bob was a past president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) as well as the past president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB/LILA). He will be sorely missed.
Matthew Young
Managing Editor
Oak Knoll Press
Via the contact form:
I am a teacher of Digital Printing at Chandler High in Chandler Arizona. Can you help me with information to create a calendar that could help promote printing awareness in school. Important days in history, national printing or other graphic art and communication or any reason we could bring some attention to the printing industries and their importance to society. Anything would be of help.
Thanks, Bernard Clark
The Government Publishing Office in Washington D.C. recently acquired two original news photographs of its most famous and beloved Linotype.
The machine, a Model 5, serial no. 14168R, shipped in June, 1910, to Pierre Lafitte & Co., a Paris agent, and was purchased by a French printing firm. Had it not been one of two requisitioned for the American Expeditionary Force by Major W.W. Kirby seven years later, the machine might well have ended its life in the same obscurity shared by many of its Brooklyn-built brethren. [Read more]
Printing History is a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Printing History Association (APHA) since 1979. APHA is a membership organization that encourages the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. The main objective of Printing History is to promote interdisciplinary studies in these fields, drawing together those concerned with the production of printed materials: scholars, librarians, printers, publishers, papermakers, bookbinders, booksellers, and others. [Read more]
British stamp, ca. 1860, bio-imagery detail showing the numerals 77, x-ray revealing an addition numeral 1.
I have a British 1d Penny Red stamp from the 1860s in my collection with the numerals 77 in the left and right margins. Only nine stamps bearing the numerals 77 have been authenticated to date. I am trying to determine how, or if, the original steel engraving plate was altered. I would like to know what would one be looking in terms of impression, chemical composition etc.
Three issues of Swiftset Rotary Printers Journal from 1939, its inaugural year.
In the mid-twentieth century, manufacturers of tabletop printing presses for hobbyists, such as Kelsey in America and Adana in Great Britain, published substantive newsletters to educate and upsell their fledging printer/customers. Kelsey’s The Printer’s Helper ran for a remarkable 55 years from 1929 to 1984 while Adana’s Printcraft ran for a respectable eight years from 1948 to 1956. On par with these titles is the lesser-known Swiftset Rotary Printers’ Journal, the official publication for Swiftset Rotary Presses, which ran from 1939 through 1950. [Read more]