Melbourne Museum of Printing
Australia's working and teaching museum of typography and printing located at Footscray, Victoria. Specialising in retention of traditional printing, both the equipment and the knowledge.
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A SELECTION OF THE MUSEUM'S ARCHIVE OF DOCUMENTS

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Melbourne Museum of Printing [36pt Old English]

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36 MORELAND STREET FOOTSCRAY :: P.O. BOX 555 :: TEL (03) 9689 7555

DOCUMENTS, AUGUST 2003

The Museum's archive of documents includes tens of thousands of invoices, costing sheets, quotations, client orders, letters, journals, proofs, galleys, job bags, material supply orders, press sheets, finished works and many other items relating to operation of a printing business or the clients of a printer.

Negatives and finished artwork (mechanicals) are nominally included in artefacts but may be found here as part of the contents of a job bag.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

An official order and the four job bags it covers.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

A job bag contents: official order, covering letter from client and a copy of the finished label.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Read about numbering, perforating, carbonless copy process.

Triplicate, three-up invoice book, quarter-bound in croc board.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Record covers (12-inch vinyls, remember them?) as they left the printer.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Business letter from a printing machinery merchant, 1964.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Journal of a printing maintenance company, listing printeries visited.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Job bag with contents: hand-written costing calculations, negative, copies of finished item.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Job bags strewn around a closed printery: the Museum is negotiating to save them.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION
Research Access, note for applicants

Large job bag (or negative envelope) containing artwork, negatives and finished booklet.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Job bag and contents: client instructions written on former printed cards with proof-sheet of Linotype typesetting.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Finished item, two-sided sales information leaflet from the 1970 era.


ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION

Press sheet, probably produced by copperplate stamping. The sheet has four letterhead pages on it. It has largely deteriorated, having been used as a wrapper for the copper plates.

Some of these examples are safely in the Museum's venue. They are fascinating and tell wonderful stories, but the venue can hold less than 5% of the Museum's world-unique collection. It is a matter of some grief that the rest, including the world's only large collection of typesetting machinery and the only collection of its kind of printing documents and artefacts, are not being protected by the authorities or industry and are in danger of being scrapped.

THE 95% THAT'S IN STORAGE AND IN JEOPARDY . . .

ENLARGEMENT? SEE JUNE PICTORIAL (DOWNLOADS)
<< View over some 20% of the Museum's collection of documents and artefacts, boxed and palletted in the store, including many like those above. The artefact collection, if it survives the present crisis, will allow researchers a detailed view of what was being printed mid to late 20th century, and how it was printed.

ENLARGEMENT? SEE JUNE PICTORIAL (DOWNLOADS)
Some of our thousands of stereotype matrices, from which stereotype plates were cast. Stereos (and electrotypes) were a way of making multiple copies of the same printing type or block.

The Museum is seeking assistance with the cost of protecting the stored collection for the next four years. Revenues should then be sufficient for ongoing storage. Without support, this world-class collection is almost certainly destined for destruction.


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