Let’s rehash the Bond Bread controversy.

[Johnphotoman]

steve B, Again you make very good points. When I talked about the photostats and printing plates, I was trying not to get too technical. Most shops I managed did save up the aluminum plates and send them to the scrape yard. If any of these did survive , my guess is they would not be very good to print from, the image quality would not be very good, a point I believe you made. But yes, someone could have old BB printing plates. But plates from 1947 could not be used run re-prints from. John

[Johnphotoman]

How photostats were used in printing. It was done in a dark room using negatives making a print on photostat paper. Much like you make a print of a photo from a negative, it is printed or say imaged onto photo paper. In this case the image was imaged onto photostat paper. That photostat would then be use to make a half-tone negative that was used to make the plate.

It was not a photocopy, but made right from the original image. In this way you could add the name right on to the photostat, thereby making a new negative with no loss of details. The photostat which is just a photo print would then be used to make the BB card. Like the photostat in Keyman article on Jackie Robinson. It has his name on it, it is a photo print from a photostat. I hope this helps. Photostats are photo prints imaged on to photo paper. John, PS one reason why it would be hard to find the original negatives that made the plate, is because they to were scrapped for the silver content in the film.