Menu Press at M&H Type

Printer People,

We have this menu press off to the side and would like to know more about it. It has drawers of type with the usual menu type words.
Any documentation or images or pictures of a working one would be much appreciated.

Brian
M&H Type

image: menupresstype.jpg

menupresstype.jpg

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Here is the press

image: menupresstypedrawers.jpg

menupresstypedrawers.jpg

image: menuspress.jpg

menuspress.jpg

Other than the cast slugs, is there any other reason you call this a Menu Press????? I’ve never seen anything like it.

But…… Here is another San Francisco “menu press” story for you.

There was a little commercial printer located about a block and a half from the TransAmerica Pyramid whose main business seemed to be imprinting daily lunch and dinner menus for dozens and dozens of restaurants in the nearby Financial and North Beach districts. They had a huge supply of pre-printed menus and standing forms for each restaurant. They would simply set the daily changes (on a Linotype), drop the changed slugs into the form, and then print off maybe a few dozen ‘NEW” menus and deliver them to the restaurants - all located within a few blocks of the print shop. The printing was done on a Little Giant press. Simply dropping the corrected forms in and making sure they had the matching pre-printed stock. Same ink (black) for all versions/restaurants.

Each menu had the current date printed on it. Real CLASS!!! Those were the days. I think all of this was in the mid-1970s.

This was transpiring as letterpress was fading away and I was just starting to amass my own personal handset type collection as the typography shops in San Francisco were disposing of their handset inventories because phototype had taken over.

Thanks for prompting some of these flashback memories.

Rick

An In Depth trawl of the *Web* under the heading >Printing Press,s on ocean going Liners< could be very interesting, including references to Arab style treadle m/c,s, Linotype Hot metal, Dawson Payne & Elliot (Wharfedale style) C. & P. and much more.

On board News Papers and particularly MENU,S inc., 2 colours.!!

Thanks for all the information.

Rick, there is no reason to call it a menu press except that someone told us that was what it was. After wading through old newspapers, I have found references to things that are considered a “menu printing press” for sale in auctions and classifieds along with the other presses we know and love.
I have also seen many references to “hotel menu printing presses”. Don’t know.

Mick, that was a great idea. Haven’t found anything yet, but that helped me get out of my narrow search.