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GALLERY OF FOUNTS, SEPTEMBER 2003

The Museum's collection of founts includes thousands of founts of printing types and thousands of founts of matrices for making type.

• USAGE OF TYPE and TYPES:
  When talking of lots of letters, either in the typecase or made up ready to print, it is normal to use the word type as a collective noun, that is, no s. So, I bought a fount of type, containing 1000 pieces overall; we have many cases of type; she used some large wooden type. or We worked all night setting the type for the newsletter. This would apply whether the type was set with individual letters or on the Linotype system which produces complete lines as one piece. The composed matter is called type.

  However when referring to the individual pieces of type, the plural form is often used but it seems to be optional. For example I have in my hand a few types from that new fount. Sometimes the plural is used for the purpose of clarity as (above) thousands of founts of printing types to indicate to a variety of readers, some less used to these things, that a fount is a collection of individual pieces.

In several instances, the Museum's holding includes all the founts on hand at a particular printery at the time of their closure.

The founts of matrices (abbr. mats) are of two basic kinds: those used for casting individual letters and those used for casting complete lines. The latter founts must contain enough of each character to compose any required text, whereas those for casting single types need only one of each character.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A fount of handset type stored, ready for use, in a typecase

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A type cabinet which stores up to 24 founts of type in cases

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION These two decorative founts of type are stored on a galley.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A "new" packet of type from Wimble's Australian Type Foundry, approx 1950

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A fount of Ludlow matrices, ready for use, in a matrix case

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Composing a line of Ludlow matrices

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A fount of wooden poster type, stored on a wooden galley

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A setting composed from that fount

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION An assortment of founts: matrices and handset type

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Examples of wood type faces

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.