Finally went to the printing museum

[steve B]

Finally went to the printing museum here in Mass.

A pretty cool place, heavy on typeset stuff but a small section on lithography.
And an excellent library.

The guy in the Library, Frank seems like a fantastic resource.
I didn't have much time, being with family.
But I did ask him a couple questions and got one really great piece of info.

There was a 2 color litho press in 1910, sold by Harris.
Still a lot of connections to make, but at least the possibility that T206s were printed on a 2 color press have gotten a lot closer to probably.

Many of them show what to me is evidence they were produced on a 2 color press. Colors are often registered in pairs and many legitimate missing color cards have two colors missing, even if one isn't obvious.


Now to make time to go back and do some real looking up and talk with that guy a bit more.

[jingram058]

Very cool.

Imagine having a press like that, a sheet of old, period cardboard, and some period, non-fluoresce inks. You could have the printer's plates made, and make a sheet of t206 Wagners, indistinguishable from the very few currently existing cards. The experts would examine them, deem them unquestionably authentic and wonder in amazement where a previously unknown hoard of Wagners came from.

Far easier and better (no paradoxes to work around) than time travel.

[brianp-beme]

This board is lucky to have Steve around to dig into the printing process, because it will help us all understand how our cards were created.

I also think Steve and Net54 is lucky that there aren't a bunch of other printers/former printers to constantly debate him about printing intricacies as some of the lawyers on here do over the intricacies of the law.


Brian (I am qualified to state this, as I have a brother who is a lawyer, and I took a semester of print shop in junior high school. Indeed, I still have a business card that I printed up that indicates that I am a "Professional Pro")

[JollyElm]

Who needs the museum?
Slip into Frank's DMs and invite him out to chug a few (local reference) Samuel Adams with you and spill his guts!!

As all card collectors know, why waste money on a silly museum entrance fee when you can put it towards some good-time brewskis with a new pal instead??
You'll make Francis very happy indeed!! (Just a guess, but probably true??)

[OhioLawyerF5]

Net54 sure is lucky to have smug posters who drag others into a thread that has nothing to do with them, just to take pot shots at them. :rollseyes:

Thanks for your contribution, Brian.

[bnorth]

That would be super cool to see. The one in Haverhill? A while back I watched a cool show on how they are now using CNC machines to make stone plates for printing. With newer CNC technology they can pretty much do everything in a process similar to like how you separate colors and make plates.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by bnorth

That would be super cool to see. The one in Haverhill? A while back I watched a cool show on how they are now using CNC machines to make stone plates for printing. With newer CNC technology they can pretty much do everything in a process similar to like how you separate colors and make plates.

Yes, the one in Haverhill.

I mentioned the "new stuff that makes the plates on the press" and Frank said that wasn't still a thing and never really caught on. An oh, he had the third one in the world in his shop.....

Frank knows stuff.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by JollyElm

Who needs the museum?
Slip into Frank's DMs and invite him out to chug a few (local reference) Samuel Adams with you and spill his guts!!

As all card collectors know, why waste money on a silly museum entrance fee when you can put it towards some good-time brewskis with a new pal instead??
You'll make Francis very happy indeed!! (Just a guess, but probably true??)

I'd be fine either way.
The museum is cool, and I like to support cool places when I can.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

This board is lucky to have Steve around to dig into the printing process, because it will help us all understand how our cards were created.

I also think Steve and Net54 is lucky that there aren't a bunch of other printers/former printers to constantly debate him about printing intricacies as some of the lawyers on here do over the intricacies of the law.


Brian (I am qualified to state this, as I have a brother who is a lawyer, and I took a semester of print shop in junior high school. Indeed, I still have a business card that I printed up that indicates that I am a "Professional Pro")

There are other printers or former printers here, some with much more experience. For better or worse, I just have a bit of a way with machines and understanding them, and explaining what's going on and why.

I also put much of what I write in language some think is vague. Heck, it's over 100 years since this stuff was done, nobody around back then is even alive anymore. All any of us can do is look at the objects and old industry journals and books and try to interpret what we see. Maybe, probably and possibly give me a lot of wiggle room for the occasional "well S*** I was wrong. Hopefully I have few of those moments. Or that they're caused by better looking up of stuff.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

Net54 sure is lucky to have smug posters who drag others into a thread that has nothing to do with them, just to take pot shots at them. :rollseyes:

Thanks for your contribution, Brian.

What has this world come to when a fellow can't take a general poke in the ribs at those in the law profession without getting a rebuke? My impression was that legalese folks had thicker skins. And OhioLawyerF5, was my remark aimed at you? In fact, I didn't even realize you were a lawyer.

If I remember correctly from print shop class, when someone dropped a tray full of type, they were supposed to yell out "Pyke!". (Steve, let me know if this was a common printer's saying, or if am I just remembering incorrectly). If I have offended some of you, I apologize, and please help me pick up all of those little metal bars of type and sort them back into the printer's tray.


Brian (no more legal talk in this thread...strictly print shop talk please)

[steve B]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

What has this world come to when a fellow can't take a general poke in the ribs at those in the law profession without getting a rebuke? My impression was that legalese folks had thicker skins. And OhioLawyerF5, was my remark aimed at you? In fact, I didn't even realize you were a lawyer.

If I remember correctly from print shop class, when someone dropped a tray full of type, they were supposed to yell out "Pyke!". (Steve, let me know if this was a common printer's saying, or if am I just remembering incorrectly). If I have offended some of you, I apologize, and please help me pick up all of those little metal bars of type and sort them back into the printer's tray.


Brian (no more legal talk in this thread...strictly print shop talk please)

The shop I worked at was lithography. No type at all.

Another question for the museum guys when I go there again.

[OhioLawyerF5]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

What has this world come to when a fellow can't take a general poke in the ribs at those in the law profession without getting a rebuke? My impression was that legalese folks had thicker skins. And OhioLawyerF5, was my remark aimed at you? In fact, I didn't even realize you were a lawyer.

If I remember correctly from print shop class, when someone dropped a tray full of type, they were supposed to yell out "Pyke!". (Steve, let me know if this was a common printer's saying, or if am I just remembering incorrectly). If I have offended some of you, I apologize, and please help me pick up all of those little metal bars of type and sort them back into the printer's tray.


Brian (no more legal talk in this thread...strictly print shop talk please)

Can dish it out, but can't take it, I see.

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by steve B

The shop I worked at was lithography. No type at all.

Another question for the museum guys when I go there again.

Steve, I will not stereotype you as a type guy in the future. Lithographers rule! And the 'Pyke' exclamation may have just been the print shop teachers personal invention...he could have told us anything and us lot of teenage boys would have had no way to verify it.


Brian

[brianp-beme]

Originally Posted by OhioLawyerF5

Can dish it out, but can't take it, I see.

If that is what helps you make it through the day, then yes, sure.


Brian

[samosa4u]

This is the one area in vintage card collecting that most people don't understand, and yet, it's so important. If you're gonna' spend shit-loads of money on vintage cards, then at least have an idea as to how they were made, right ??

Now, the first-ever hockey cards to be released in Canada were the C56's. These were made using stone lithography, which is a very complicated time-consuming process. One of the printing stones that was used in making these cards was recently discovered:



Because these C56 cards were released around the same time as the T206's, I always assumed that both sets were made the same way.

[samosa4u]

Here is a close-up of the printing stone below. You can see that it was also used for making other products as well. Afterwards, they would just grind it down and reuse it, but that didn't happen to this one because it was probably at the end of its life cycle. It's amazing that it survived!

[steve B]

Originally Posted by brianp-beme

Steve, I will not stereotype you as a type guy in the future. Lithographers rule! And the 'Pyke' exclamation may have just been the print shop teachers personal invention...he could have told us anything and us lot of teenage boys would have had no way to verify it.


Brian

Not a type guy meaning I've never done it. But I'm familiar with most of it.
As a stamp collector it's sometimes important to be able to tell how a stamp or a feature of a stamp was printed. Sometimes the difference in value is huge.

So,
Lithography
Typeset
engraved
Gravure
Sort of typeset, using copper cliches, sort of like a cut in typeset, but not exactly. (or lead, or steel, or.... )

One of my art classes was making prints.
different sorts of silkscreening
Woodblock
linoleum block
etching
Lithography using a paper "plate"
Maybe a couple others, I sort of forget, since it was like 1979 or 80. Still have the prints I made.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by samosa4u

Here is a close-up of the printing stone below. You can see that it was also used for making other products as well. Afterwards, they would just grind it down and reuse it, but that didn't happen to this one because it was probably at the end of its life cycle. It's amazing that it survived!

That's a wonderful artifact!

It's not the production stone, but the master for a bunch of stuff including that card. The production stones were resurfaced, but the masters were retained. The other things on that stone were probably jobs that would get done fairly often so keeping the master saved a lot of work. Luckily the card was on there too.

From this they would print transfers, using a very tarlike ink and printed on very thin paper.
Those transfers would be put on the production stone and adhered with solvent. The thin paper would also be removed while the solvent was still wet.

When you see a card from back then with a border gap or in T206 the messed up name and team, that's from a transfer that didn't transfer, or tore as it was being laid down and put back together.

We know T206 was at least mostly done from stones laid out with transfers.

[toppcat]

Old stones were often used as fill at building sites after they had been discarded by the lithographers. There's been some studies of this over the years and at least one PhD dissertation on the subject. Some survived that way while others were probably just taken home by workers for whatever reason.

[Leon]

That is a cool printing stone.
Here is an early hockey trade card (below), circa 1880s... H820 in the ACC.....

Originally Posted by samosa4u

This is the one area in vintage card collecting that most people don't understand, and yet, it's so important. If you're gonna' spend shit-loads of money on vintage cards, then at least have an idea as to how they were made, right ??

Now, the first-ever hockey cards to be released in Canada were the C56's. These were made using stone lithography, which is a very complicated time-consuming process. One of the printing stones that was used in making these cards was recently discovered:



Because these C56 cards were released around the same time as the T206's, I always assumed that both sets were made the same way.