I headed down to Andover, MA, yesterday, to visit The Museum of Printing. I had heard that they were having a one day, letterpress type, sale. I have a romantic notion that one of these days I am going to buy a small Kelsey tabletop letterpress press. I don’t think that is realistically going to happen but, anyway, I love type and the thought of seeing drawers and boxes of cast metal type got me pretty excited. The museum is small but is packed full of letterpress presses (49 to be exact) along with engraving, offset (lithographic) presses and cylinder presses. It was really cool to see a drum cylinder news press that was circa 1896. Presses of this kind were used until the 1970s! Prior to 1884 the operators were hand placing type, one letter and one space at a time. Linotype came in around 1884 which meant lines of type were created, thus cutting down a lot of time and labor — pretty amazing. What a testament to today’s digital printing technologies — wow have times changed!
The museum puts forth a valiant effort to address the changes in printing and pre-press technology in another section of the museum. Here you will find Phototypesetting computers, linotype teletypesetters, typewriters, platemaking exposure machines and Apple computers with external floppy disk drives — eye candy!
I would recommend visiting the museum when they have type sales or, to learn more about the history of letterpress, visit when they are having guided tours. I have my eye out for when they have another Wood Type sale and that will be a conversation for another day! I have attached a few images for a glimpse of the museum. You can visit the Museum’s website and on Facebook as well for more information. Enjoy!
