Sunday, February 5, 2012

Macro Monday: Old Printer's Blocks

I guess it wasn't that many years ago that printed materials were all made using printing presses, led type and printing blocks. Showing my age here, but I can remember in Junior High School having my choice of signing up for Wood Shop, Metal Shop, or Graphic Arts. I opted for Graphic Arts and learned a little about setting type and printing presses. Very cool!
We have almost 20 of these blocks that my wife bought years ago at a garage sale. They are all similar (though not identical) in size at about 2"x2". They appear to be made out of a hardwood base with an etched metal (copper?) print face. The metal face is nailed to the wood block beneath it. I love the detail in these old blocks. I tried to research them but couldn't find much. I'm guessing these date back to the '40s, and they all appear to be advertisements for an electrical motor repair company. They represent a photographic challenge: To capture the beautiful detail, and because they are made as a mirror image so they print correctly, I need to flip them around so you could read them. Hope you like them!






Linking over to Macro Monday. Please click the link 
to see great macro photos.  Have a great week!!

21 comments:

  1. Fabulous detail and a great and interesing macro subject.

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  2. Neat printing blocks. Thanks for sharing that. I too went the graphic arts route (well did the other two also) mainly for the silk screening process so we could make our own t-shirts - Powered by Coors. It was the early 60's, what else?

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  3. I'm well acquainted with printer's blocks. My dad had a small job shop behind our house where he would do printing when he wasn't operating a Linotype at the LA times. When a customer brought him artwork they wanted included in a job he would sent it out for a "cut" to be made.

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  4. Quite the find. Never know what will pop up at a garage sale.

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  5. These are works of art in their own right. How I wish California schools would offer vocational arts again.

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  6. These are very cool. Hope you have a way to display them for your enjoyment. Good garage sale find.

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  7. Those are amazing! Your wife has a good eye, I'm glad that she found them :)

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  8. Hi there - I like objects like this - they speak of a level of craft that I think we are about to lose - assuming we have not already lost it!

    Stewart M - Australia

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  9. These are wonderful. Love the art deco style.

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  10. Very cool! I love the one that says Motor Repairs that Satisfy!

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  11. Looking at these makes me nostalgic for simpler times. Nice subject for Macro Monday.

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  12. Beautiful details and photos.

    Regards and best wishes

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  13. Really interesting subject, and a nice job handling the photographic challenge. I bet it was not too easy to get the light just perfect to make these readable since all the detail is in the texture without any color contrast.

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  14. Wonderful details in these photos.

    Happy MM

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  15. Interesting information. I think they were great tools at that time. :)

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  16. When I was in 7th grade, shop was mandatory and it consisted of the three parts you mentioned, print shop, metal shop, and wood shop. I hated print shop because we had to memorize the letters in the type case and I thought it was stupid (I guess I was clairvoyant).

    These are really cool with great detail.

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  17. Hey Spare Parts! Cool pics! Looking forward to the desert. Git ya camera ready! yee ha!

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  18. This is great! «Louis» has two uncles who are printers and he remembers print blocks like these from their print shops.

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  19. How interesting! Glad you reversed these so we could read them easily :-)

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