What is this Gehrig item?
 

Anyone know what this is? I am told it is made out of a type of cardboard (which might rule out it being a printing plate).

and this little note came with the email...

"..I found that exact picture and passage in an Indiana newspaper July 8, 1937. I thought that this might have been a printing plate...but as I don't have the card in my possession..i asked the seller what it was made of..and he said that it is a card type material. So, that ruled that thought. Seller has been told that it was a promotional card from a magazine of some sort."





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Printing plates are backwards--mirror images.

Unless it's a printing plate of a printing plate :).

The printing plates I have seen contain only an image, and not text in addition.

Taking into account David's observation, and that such plates usually contain only an image, and not text in addition, I think it may be made from the full printing plate - the full newspaper metal page.

It appears that the image and text are part of a larger piece too.

Also would be helpful to see the back of course, few cards were printed and distributed without some form of credit or advertisement on them. We have seen such cards, but they are far fewer in number than cards with the maker printed, particularly post 1930. Appears like a full page print on non-newspaper paper. Whether it was issued as a sheet officially, or was a one-off by someone, it appears difficult to tell given the above.

Not sure if this helps: Note the lower left. It has a 49 in that design.
Sorry can't figure out how to make it bigger.

Could it be a test impression of a die to check for flaws etc. before a production run?

That's the Associated Press logo "AP". According to their website, that logo was in use beginning in 1981. http://www.ap.org/company/brand

This, I believe is an old letter press printing matte. This matte was secured in a form and molten lead was poured into the form. When cooled the solid lead block with the reverse image from the matte was placed in a form for printing. The reverse of the matte would then appear on the printed piece. Probably used in a newspaper. Very common in the pre-fifties

I think matty39 is right:

From the July 8, 1937 edition of the Indiana Evening Gazette

Would this be a rare piece...or a common piece of memorabilia? This article was reporting on the 1937 All-star game..does this fact make it more interesting?

From what little I remeber from printing and typesetting in junior high, some letters and/or words were set backwards. So that when they were printed. They came out the way they are suppose to be read. My grandfather (God rest his soul) was a newspaper typesetter and pressman for a newspaper in Worcester Mass. They used heavy lead plates to print pictures and before he was forced to retire, they went to using plastic plates for printing press plates.

That's what I was thinking. It being cardboard made me think newer, I'd be surprised if a decent block would be had from melted lead going into cardboard. Some presses used rubber plates, but I don't know when that started.

Possible, I just looked it up and the rubber plate process was around from about 1900.

Steve B

Stereotype
 

I believe Steve and Matty have nailed this. It looks like a portion of the stereotype that was used to make printing plates for rotary presses at major newspapers at least into the 1970s. As a longtime newspaperman, I remember sadly that the stereotypers were the first department rendered obsolete when the Boston papers adopted new technologies beginning sometime soon after 1972 (when the Record-American purchased the Herald-Traveler).As such, I'd call this piece ephemera, since it was intended to be thrown away or recycled.