VIRTUAL TOUR - COLLECTION: PRESSES, TYPESETTERS, ARTEFACTS, FOUNTS - PROGRAMS - TYPEFOUNDRY - ACCESS STUDIO
Melbourne Museum of Printing
Australia's working and teaching museum of typography and printing located at Footscray, Victoria. Specialising in retention of letterpress, both the equipment and the knowledge.
Our Albion Press Linotype Monotype Supercaster Matrix Matrices for the Ludlow Handset Types Making a Print
CLICK HERE for larger images and descriptions of these thumbnails.
DID YOU KNOW?(Some key facts about the Museum)
INCLUDING OUR UNWANTED MOVE!

Virtual Tour Page

Pardon us as we build this site, for any shortcomings.
For example, many detail files are incomplete, but included to show the breadth of subject matter we intend to cover. And we will have lots more illustrations of our machines and artefacts.
We hope you will visit us again soon !

TOUR THE MUSEUM by browsing this overview, or click one of the following to navigate by other means:
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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Virtual Tour

Browse here to find out about our Museum: who we are, what we have, what we do, how to find us.

Also find what YOU CAN DO at our Museum: use our presses and types to make your own hand-pulled typographic prints, print your own book, or investigate how printing was done before the computer.

Our Letterpress Supplies Department known as Australian Type Company supports the world-wide use of traditional printing with a substantial working type-foundry.

Our Museum Shop has a fascinating range of books, leaflets and samples.
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A variety of machines and artefacts

Melbourne Museum of Printing

Our Collections

COLLECTIONS DEPARTMENT

Nearly 200 machines and thousands of artefacts.


The Museum has four collections.

Machinery Collection

There are four sections within the Machinery Collection. These are: Each of these sections is divided into categories.

Founts Collection

There are three sections within the Founts Collection. These are:

Artefacts Collection

The Artefact Collection is divided into many sections, covering three broad areas. These are:

Ancilliary Collections

These are collections which are not directly related to the printing industry but to the working environment in general and the office environment in particular. They include:

NOTES

A fount [pron font] of type is made up of about 90 different characters (for English: more in many other languages), and has a number of pieces of type of each character. Text sizes (such as 8 point) may have a total of 4000 pieces in a fount. Large display sizes (such as 48 point) may have as few as 200 pieces.
Founts of type are stored in typecases. Typecases are stored in type cabinets. We have a collection with thousands of founts, hundreds of cabinets and every kind of accessory and tool used in traditional printing.
Printing presses are, in the main, either letterpress or offset- litho. In letterpress there are platen presses and cylinder presses. They may be motorised or person-powered. They may be hand-fed or automatically fed. They may be large machines or little desktop devices. We have them all, dating from about 1850 to the 1980's.
Typesetting for letterpress may be by hand (hand-set type founts) or by machine. Working machines in our collection include all common processes: Linotype, Intertype, Ludlow Typograph, Nebitype and Monotype. And we don't just have one of each: there are about eighty machines in total. And thousands of founts of matrices for them.
Making hand-set type is the function of a typecasting machine or a manual type mould, together with sets of matrices. Our typefoundry has a Trader Horn manual type mould, several Monotype Supercasters and several Monotype composition casters and a wide range of matrices.
Our collection also includes many business records and examples of printing together with artwork, proofs, layouts, negatives, printing plates, engraved blocks, cutting formes and `rescued' pages and jobs made up in type.
Our library has a large collection of Books as Artefacts. These are chosen not for their content but their style and circumstances of printing and publishing. Also our collection of prints and posters many of which were printed at the Museum by visitors under our Access Studio program.

Machines of all kinds

Our Machinery Collection

Machines of all kinds for printing, typecasting, typesetting, cutting, folding, camerawork, platemaking, stereo and many others. For letterpress, offset, foil printing, stampmaking, labelmaking.

Our collection of machines features both old technology and new. After all, what is new today will be old tomorrow. We include quite a few examples of `new' technology, already outdated after just a few years.
Technical notes are included with this Department. Historical notes about the use of any particular machine or process would be found in our Printing Industry Department. [BUT DON'T EXPECT TOO MUCH JUST YET, IN THAT AREA.]
Many machines use sets [or founts] of matrices. These founts are in our Founts Division (see below), but the description of the mats and how they work is in this Department.

TYPESETTING MACHINES

Linotype; Intertype; Ludlow; Nebitype; Monotype: machines which produce metal type, composed ready to print.

TYPECASTING MACHINES

Monotype Supercaster, Thompson Typecaster, manual typecasters: machines which produce single types, for hand typesetting.

PRE-PRESS EQUIPMENT

Computer typesetters and other items which produce an image of type on film or paper; cameras, platemakers, processors: items which produce or handle images for photo-based printing.

PRINTING MACHINES

Letterpress platen and cylinder presses and proofers; Offset presses, photocopiers. Label press. Hot Foil Stamping presses.

OTHER MACHINES

Guillotine, folder, stitcher/stapler, jogger, bindery: for processing the paper before or after printing.

Stereotyping press, melting pot, casting box, backplaner etc., for making duplicate printing blocks or rubber stamps.

Stripcasters, to extrude strips of spacing and similar material.

Sundry items. Examples are machines for sawing and mitring printing types and strip material, machines to make cross-points for rule-formes, to put security patterns onto typefaces, clean and adjust mats.


various founts

Our Founts Collection

A fount [Spelt as 'font' in US English, and pronounced 'font' in any dialect] is an old typefounder's term for the quantity of type made in one founding. [OED]

In the printing sense, the fount of type was meant to be an inexhaustible supply of letters (of the one face and size), from which a book was composed. Each fount is stored in a type case, a kind of tray with about 90 compartments, or perhaps a pair of cases to achieve larger compartments.
As the compositor used up the letters, they would be topped up. Work would stop if the `case' ran out of any letter.
The collection includes many founts of type, new and used, with the majority ranging up to 60 years old. Some are older, with many from foundries long since closed. Most are stored in cases, and some `tied up' on galleys.
For the typefoundry, there are many founts of matrices for making hand-set type. It is relevant to note that unlike a fount of type, a fount of typecasting mats has only one of each character. So it is not a fount in the truest sense. But it was obviously convenient to use the same term.
For the linecasters (Linotype, Ludlow, etc.) the matrix founts are stored and used in magazines or matrix cases, and there are plenty of them.
Founts of matrices are listed here, but their technical notes will be found along with the machine that uses them.

Handset Type Section

Typesetting Matrix Section

Typecasting Matrix Section


Various other items

Our Artefact Collection

Look here for items which are not machinery or founts. If you cannot find what you're looking for, try our LOOK-UP.
.
The Artefact Collection is divided into many sections, covering three broad areas.
Artefacts relating to individual printing jobs. These include designs, proofs, engravings, stereotypes, made-up type pages, cutting/creasing formes, quotations, invoices, purchase records and of course the end product, printed items.
Artefacts relating to tasks such as hand tools, storage racks and cabinets, and the myriad materials and items used in printing which are not machines and not founts.
Our Library and Archives
Artefacts: engravings, stereotypes, stereo mats, hand tools, cabinetry, designs, layouts, artworks, negs, plates (offset), printed sheets, finished works, rubber stamps, etc.

Books: on printing and as examples of printing. Includes thousands of books assembled to show styles of book design and the work of hundreds of printers and publishers throughout the world.

Archive of business records (quotes, invoices, working papers). Thousands of documents giving insight into commerce over the decades, not only within the printing industry.

Art prints: made in our Access Studio, as well as a few acquired from other studios.

DESIGN DOCUMENTS

DOCUMENTARY ARTEFACTS

HAND TOOLS and OTHER ITEMS


OTHER NON-MACHINERY ITEMS

LIBRARY and ARCHIVES


Ancilliary Collections

These are collections which are not directly related to the printing industry but to the working environment in general and the office environment in particular. They include:
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Students around a press

Melbourne Museum of Printing

Our Programs

PROGRAM DEPARTMENT

Workshops, Courses, Access Studio, Reseearch.



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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Our staff and volunteers

About Us

One of our aims: to preserve not only the hardware of printing but the skill-base required to use it.



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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Examples of our type products

Our Type Foundry

One of our aims: . . . to ensure the ongoing availability of supplies for those who wish to print by letterpress.


Read about AUSTRALIAN TYPE COMPANY, which offers a wide range of letterpress typefaces and other supplies. All proceeds go to the Museum.

Our MUSEUM SHOP carries a range of visitor packs with interesting assortments of real letterpress types priced from $5 to $50 (Australian Dollars). Mail order is possible. Just give us a call for details.
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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Books showing typographical 
keywords

Our Glossary of Printing


The Museum's Glossary of letterpress terms, many of which have been incorporated into modern typographic software.

To compare our Glossary with others around the world, we have provided links to many other great on-line glossaries.

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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Books showing typographical keywords

Information about Printing


[NOTE: STILL BEING DEVELOPED]

Origins and development of printing.


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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Mosaic of Books and Posters

Printmaking with Letterpress

Printmaking: use of printing technology for Fine Art


[NOTE: STILL BEING DEVELOPED]

Typographic printmaking : posters, poetry, books, pamphlets produced with traditional metal typesetting. An established art form in some countries : hardly recognised in others.
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Melbourne Museum of Printing

world map

Other Print-related Sites


[NOTE: STILL BEING DEVELOPED]

Links to Australian and world-wide museums, colleges, organisations, studios and magazines that deal with printing generally and letterpress in particular.

OUR LINKS TO OTHER GLOSSARIES OF PRINTING ARE HERE and are now working.


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Melbourne Museum of Printing

Map highlighting Victoria, Australia

VicNet and Victoria


VicNet: Service Provider to the community of Victoria.
Fascinating!

Where in the world is Victoria, Australia?

And where is Footscray, Victoria?

Visit hundreds of sites in this fast-moving State.

Links to everywhere!


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