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 TYPE SETTINGS AND FOUNTS

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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

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.

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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