The Museum's archive of type settings includes tens of thousands of printing jobs, still set up in metal letters. Instead of being broken down (letters returned to their boxes) or melted for resetting, many jobs were tied up and stored for re-use.

As printers changed technology or closed their doors, many of these standing jobs were acquired for the Museum where they remain for research into design, composition methods and business history and as silent testament to the skilled work of compositors of the past.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Club Invitation and Programme, 1982

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Close-up shot: each letter a separate piece.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Typesetting: the wrapping is interesting, too.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Close-up of the pharmacy typesetting.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION This 1953 annual accounts document, on the press in the Museum's Access Studio.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A closer look at the hand-set details.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Typesetting for a business form: a "rule forme".

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION A few examples of typesettings tied up and labelled.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION Typesetting for a business card.

ENLARGEMENT AND DESCRIPTION "Standing Lines": Letterpress printing onto sausage casings.

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.