Typesetting

I have some pre-digital Sydney Morning Herald lead type. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do with it, as I don’t have a printing press or even a type cabinet, so I suspect that a good proportion of it will go the way of most of the other Herald lead and get melted down. Once I can bear to part with it, that is. My dilemma is that it is body text, maybe 7pt or 8pt, so it’s fiddly to handle, not that you want to be handling it too much and breathing in the dust, and anyway, for my creative purposes I don’t need a lot, just a few pieces of each letter. The type came accompanied by this picture, which I can only assume is an illustrated snapshot of the Herald back in the day. I particularly like the press on the left, which looks very much like a Columbian Press. The Columbian Press, manufactured in Philadelphia in 1813, was the first press to be operated efficiently by levers, and was designed to allow a whole newspaper page to be printed in a single pull. The counterweight, in the form of a neoclassical eagle, sits balanced on the counterpoise lever. The scene depicted here looks rather relaxed, but perhaps it is a slow news day and they are nutting out the cryptic crossword.