Letterpress Type Sale?

Forgot to mention this!
Since my machine is small, I won’t buy huge types. Maybe the biggest one would be 30pt?

There are several typefoundries still in operation who would love to sell you type. Assuming you’re in the US, check out:

Skyline: http://www.skylinetype.com/
M&H: http://www.arionpress.com/mandh/
Swamp Press: http://www.swamppress.com/
The Dale Guild: http://www.thedaleguild.com/
Quaker City [no website]

You should also know about NA Graphics: http://www.nagraph.com/

Heres a more complete list, including some UK sources in case you’re on that side of the pond:

http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/tools/type/typefoun...

Regards,
David M.
www.CircuitousRoot.com

M&H have my vote; courteous, prompt to respond and willing to go for the cheapest postage costs (to Australia). I have also purchased from the Dale Guild but found their postage costs (eBay system) a problem.

As to your question about storage, in conversation with the curator of the Melbourne Museum of Print, he told me that he had, as a youngster, used ice cube trays.

Trust me, you need to be very disciplined with type storage (as one who dropped a font of lower case) or the time wasted can run to hours.

Enjoy your new interest.

when i started out and couldn’t afford type cases i used egg cartons. a lot of my type i bought from Quaker City, it was well made and lasted a long time, i have seen type from Swamp Press and feel it is a good type.

I only started with letterpress printing about a year ago, so I’m still very much a newbie myself as well. I’ve yet to find a local source for cases or cabinets and furniture shipping costs are horrendous, so I started using jewelry-making supply boxes from Michael’s Crafts. They’re clear plastic and have something like 32 containers per box. They normally cost $7 each, but you can regularly get them for half off or so via coupons and sales and such. The lid completely separates all the interior containers so there’s no chance of mixing sorts should I drop one when carrying it. It does take three boxes per font though and all the inner containers are the same size so there’s no visual clues as to what’s in which. I do lower case and most commonly used punctuation in one; upper case and less common punctuation plus some specials like $ and & in the second; and numbers, spaces, ligatures and any other specials like £ in the last. I label them in Sharpie® and stack them. So far it’s worked quite well, but I only have about 6 founts of type at the moment.

Michael Hurley

Thank you so much for all your great comments!
Both egg cartons and plastic jewelry box are great idea. Also good to know about typefoundries. Besides M&H seems to be located in my area. (I’m living in Oakland, CA) :-)

VintageCat

Hi Vintage Cat,

Like Michael, I’ve used crafters’ boxes for storing type (here’s a photo). I manage to get a complete font into one box by putting upper- and lowercase letters in one compartment, combining sparse letters like X and Z, and using only three compartments for all the numbers. It takes just a second to fish out what you want.

Barbara

Hi Barbara,
Thank you for the photo!
It really helps me to get an idea :-)

VintageCat

I got somebody with a router to make me these strips of MDF, that I insert into empty cases. It probably can also be done with a laser cutter. An afternoon of putting the pieces together, with a hammer and a block of wood.

inset_for_cases.JPG

Wow Thomas! That is really cool case!
Want to have a small wooden one too but no choice right now.

Thanks for sharing a cool idea!

VintageCat

This is how I’m storing my type for now until I can buy a full cabinet. The plastic cases are about 7 dollars each from Micahel’s (grab a coupon first you usually get 40-50 percent off and you can scan straight from a smart phone. They have curved bottoms so type is easy to remove and I bought ones with 34 cells (not the usual 24). I have one case for uppercase and one for lowercase. I had to double up some punctuation but it works for now I hope. I haven’t had the chance to set with it yet.

I think some other printers have said the same thing, but hey it works. Here is the photo.

Type Cases

Hi PanthenraPress,
I bought exactly same ones what you showed :)
I even bought that small plastic box for my other letterpress stuff too!
Thanks for sharing!

VintageCat

I have a set of home made cases (maybe 10) where someone gathered several of the smaller boxes that wooden matches come in; you know the ones that have the sliding sleeve?
They were all taped together (maybe 10 across and 4 down) with what looks like some kind of bookbinders tape and set on a thin plywood bottom and some 1” or so wooden sides sides made up all the way around.
They stack pretty nicely and have held up for what looks like at least 30 years, and still quite useful for smaller fonts of type and other goodies.
Don’t know how economical that would be unless you already use an awful lot of wooden match sticks, but I thought I’d throw that out.

PantheraPress, those are exactly the same as the ones I use. Pretty decent as a non-traditional method of type storage.

Cans someone who uses the Michaels’ boxes identify the item number or a URL for it online? My local store does not have them. Thanks, Neil

Vintage Cat, my great uncle was a printer for over sixty years. I have thirty type sets of all dif sizes and thousands of block images. I want to sell them all! If your still looking please contact me at [email protected]

I use the plastic cases too! I’m in a situation like yours, limited space with a table top press.

The ones from Micheals are called bead storage containers. I asked a lady that worked there and she pointed me to them.

-B

You can also get a box almost exactly the same as the Michael’s Bead box at Walmart. Sam number of partictions and same size.

Vintage Cat,
Take a look in the Briarpress classified under new type for sale, New Rochelle, ny
Walter Lux has 48 brand new fonts for sale.
s

Going back to the initial querry on this thread, true Futura was a German import and probably hard to find. In the U.S., Monotype essentially produced an exact replica and renamed it as the Twentieth Century series. That will be much easier to find.

Rick

Hi,
where are you located? I have type for sale.
Thanks,

Jeff, this forum-thread is almost two years old.

If you have type for sale, the best way to find a buyer is to create a classified ad and list the details such as where you are, whether you are willing to ship, what typefaces/sizes etc.

Good luck!
-Kim

I have lots of type and various other items for sale. Please contact me if you are interested.
Thanks