Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: July 15, 2009 08:16PM

Scrap dealers delight. Lotsa good high grade cast iron there.

Value otherwise these days .... about $0

woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 15, 2009 10:10PM

Looks like an American ripp-off from the Linotype machine.
Linotypes were the second most important doo-hickey in the history of printing.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 15/07/2009 10:10PM by woberto.

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: July 16, 2009 02:10AM

From Wikipedia:

In 1876, a German clock maker, Ottmar Mergenthaler[1], who had emigrated to America in 1872, was approached by James O. Clephane and his associate Charles T. Moore, who sought a quicker way of publishing legal briefs.[2] By 1884,[1] he conceived the idea of assembling metallic letter molds, called matrices, and casting molten metal into them, all within a single machine. His first attempt proved the idea feasible, and a new company was formed. Always improving his invention, Mergenthaler further developed his idea of an independent matrix machine. In July, 1886, the first commercially used Linotype was installed in the printing office of the New York Tribune. Here it was immediately used on the daily paper and a large book. The book, the first ever composed with the new Linotype method, was titled, The Tribune Book of Open-Air Sports.[3]

Initially, The Mergenthaler Linotype Company was the only company producing linecasting machines, but in time, other companies would begin manufacturing. The Intertype Company, which produced the Intertype, a machine closely resembling the Linotype, and using the same matrices as the Linotype, started production around 1914. Where Mergenthaler prided themselves on intricately formed cast-iron parts on their machine, Intertype machined many of their similar parts from steel and aluminum.

Linotype machines can still be found in operation today, composing as they have done for well over 100 years, producing printing slugs for use together with handset type, in small job shops, and newspaper museums throughout the world.

Sounds to me as if it was made here. Also looks like the Intertype waddn as loaded with cast iron as I though when lookin at the pic

woberto Report This Comment
Date: July 16, 2009 02:52AM

On the side you can't see there is the crucible. Lead ingots were tied and lowered into the melting pot as the machine produced lines of type. When you turned it off the lead in the crucible solidified again and the partially lowered ingot would be a solid part of this, sticking vertically up out of the crucible.
So from a scrap metal point of view, if you find one of these machine, there are bound to be some lead ingots nearby!

Mrkim Report This Comment
Date: July 16, 2009 03:51AM

Yeah, we had a buncha lead letterpress furniture,type blocks and such we sold several years back. We called up a few gun shops till we found one willing to pick it up and smiled as they drove away, a good deal for everyone.

One of the craziest things I ever found inside a press was a lead ingot about 1-1/2 X 18" long. It was down by the bull gear rack in the base of the press on an old Heidelberg SBB converted to be a diecutter, actually the same one I rebuilt and posted pics of a while back.

I've found wrenches, screwdrivers, tons of bolts, screws, nuts and washers, quoins and quoin keys, pliers, all manner of furniture, pieces of old broken assemblies that were never removed from previous repairs, all kinds odd stuff in machines over the years, but that was the only time I ever came across a lead ingot!

I still have a cuppla old furniture cabinets, some lead, aluminum and wood furniture and some type and image blocks out in the shop. Dunno what I'll ever do with it all.

These days I'm more focused on folder gluers, bindery equipment and equipment more in the finishing end of the industry. I still do repairs from time to time on cylinder presses but a lot of shops are letting machines sit idle right now instead of repairing 'em.

The equipment and repair business here in the US is just about at a standstill in our industry. Lots of other dealers I know are in pretty sad shape and I fear within the next 6 months many of them will no longer be in business at all if things don't change. Shop closings and equipment auctions continue to overload the equipment market and devalue the equipment available from the resultant glut all at the same time, which makes selling machinery ever more challenging ... Hi Ho