where to purchase wood type?

hello! i’m trying to figure out where i can get reasonably priced wood type. i did look on ebay, but they can get pretty pricey!

Log in to reply   3 replies so far

PLEASE Google “Wood Type, New”

Kind of a rant-and not aimed at you but………

Well.,,,, If you intend to make money with all this printed stuff, then expect to pay money. Honestly! Letterpress is an obsolescent technology, but not a dead technology. Everything costs money and inflation is rampant in the hobby and elsewhere as people try to buy assets vs the financial and equity products they previously did.

If you make broad sheets that you can sell for $10 a sheet and you sell editions of 50 and the paper costs $200 some of that credit for that profit goes to the type you purchased (and will treat lovingly because it’s so cussed spendy). If you flat out have no money, try printing with found objects—make your own (different materials come to mind as awfully interesting to play with).

There is no free lunch in this or any hobby. Everything is constrained by the triangle of quality, time, and cost. You can have that wood type by saving over time, by making it yourself, or getting by with something else. A painter won’t make paintings without sinking immense amounts of time into the skill set.

If you are very lucky, and can win a production window, Virgin Wood Type is the place I would go first to buy NEW (and new is a good thing)wood type. If he doesn’t have the face(s) you need, then you either deal with Ebay, or get the machinery to roll your own (probably about $1k—plus end grain maple stock, or plexi or whatever you intend to use).

If you want to play, you may well have to pay, and the message goes to everybody. I guess I got lucky to get in before the silly season arrived (at this for only10 years), but deals are out there, even on Ebay, but the days of the 50 cent per sort deal just aren’t happening and probably won’t. Happy hunting and printing.

Sorry if this seems a distressing or off putting sort of thing, but folks do need to be reminded about it now and again. Again, best of printing adventures to you.

You can always watch the classifieds here on briar press. Someone posted some not too long ago…

Hello,
I ‘wood’ check with Scott Moore at Moore Wood Type Co.
Scott is producing replacement letters, ornaments and of course new fonts.
[email protected]
www.moorewoodtype.com
Happy Printing,
Jim McGraw