Print shop

“ Whole piles of quired stock, meaning books unbound, are already crumbling to dust in the warehouses of booksellers, never to come to light as books, and many a volume designed to enrich the library of its possessor and to descend as an heir-loom to posterity, now presents to the mortified owner its elegant print surrounded by a margin of tan colour, which in some instances forms, as it were, a complete frame round each page, the oil varnish in the composition of the ink seeming to preserve the interstices between the print from the same kind of discoloration. ”

“ It soon became the habit of the printers to open shops apart from their printing offices for the sale of their productions. These salesrooms developed into 53book-shops through carrying in stock the books of other printers. In the old-world cities trades had a habit of congregating in one place. If a man wanted to open a book-shop, instead of trying to find a good location where there were no other book-shops very near at hand, he tried to get a location as near as he could to all the other book-shops. ”

“ If the printer could sell directly to the public or the bookseller could print his own books, obviously the whole or the greater part of both of these profits might go to one man. In this competition, however, the bookseller had three advantages. One came from the fact that the carrying on of a printing plant was a business enterprise and the additional care of maintaining a selling organization for marketing books with the 52public was more than most printers were equal to. The second was that the bookseller could buy a whole edition or contract for its publication. ”

“ I took off my overcoat and other coat, and hung them up with my hat. Then I found another printer’s dirty apron, and started in to work.
It may be hard to understand how a man, after having been employed for years in one of New York’s big printing-plants, should have finally found his [Pg 43] life’s opportunity in that little country junk-shop of a printing-office. ”

“ Visitors to the Printing Office today may not see counterparts of the postriders who brought mail to Parks’s printing shop and post office, but nearly everything else is there. As in colonial days, the central figure is still the printer, bending over his press and producing in a day’s work what one modern, mechanized press can turn out in a few minutes. ”

“ And a notable group of artisans, few in number but steadily increasing, with electric motors at their elbows, to-day enjoy complete emancipation from the factory bell. A woodcarver, bookbinder, leather stamper, forger of ornamental iron, rug weaver, potter, lens grinder, or printer, can have to-day a shop of his own and take pleasure in the chosen and constantly varied toil that gives him bread. In their simpler forms the modern lathe, loom, printing press, are cheap enough to be within the means of poor men, while their product when it displays taste and originality is sure of a market. ”

“ The atmosphere has been becoming more and more charged with the character of the printing business. Now may be felt the tremour and heard the sound of moving presses. Printing houses, dealers in "litho inks," linotype companies, paper makers, "publishers and jobbers of books," "photo engraving" establishments are all about. Here is a far-famed publishing house the sight of which takes you back with a jump to your boyhood, your youthful, arrant, adventurous reading. Those were the happy days when the flavour of Crime was like ginger i' the mouth. ”

“ I cannot see any use for them in a drawing-room. Music-books should be in the music-stand, a lady's work in her work-table, and books either in use or put away in the book-case.
A portfolio-stand is of great service in preserving and displaying drawings and prints which require careful and practised handling. Sir Felix Slade, the eminent print-collector, used to complain that many persons, especially young ladies, made a bent mark with their thumbs in the margin of an engraving ”

“ In these it was provided that every shop should have a minimum equipment of two presses well provided with type. This was probably intended to put a stop to the small shops which did poor work and were very difficult to regulate under the police regulations which will be later discussed. The number of shops in Paris was fixed by this edict at 36. Private printing—that is to say, the exercise of the industry by persons not members of the Community of Printers—was absolutely forbidden. ”

“ Besides this, there is probably no other line of Manual Arts work in which pupils, grade boys especially, get so practical a working knowledge of the actual shop work as in printing. This fact is often turned to good advantage by the boys, for there can scarcely be found a commercial printshop anywhere which is not glad to employ one or two boys during vacation time, if they know a little about the work and are interested. ”

“ Here is the only great printing establishment of the past that time and the inroads of man have left intact. The beauty of the building, the harmony of the surroundings, the old portraits, the comfort yet the taste shown in the living-rooms,—all show that the artist-printer sought the same elements in his life that he expressed in his work. Entering from the Marché du Vendredi, I find myself face to face with a small tablet over the door on which is the device of Christophe Plantin, “first printer to the King, and the king of printers.” ”

“ The early printers were their own publishers and booksellers. Previous to the invention of typography the maker and seller of the book were not ordinarily the same person. It was only natural that in a short time the stationers, that is to say, the sellers of manuscript books and of writing materials, should sell printed books also. Both the printer and bookseller were interested in an attempt to cut out one profit. If the printer sold to the bookseller and the bookseller sold to the public, both must profit by the transaction. ”

“ To-day, amid the whirr of many presses, and the hurrying to and fro of the printing office, the printer finds little or no time for literary pursuits, despite the fact that printing is, in very truth, the handmaid of literature. ”

“ Printing was the first industry which could not be carried on under the old conditions. From the beginning the printer must have capital to supply type, presses, and other equipment, to purchase material, which was costly, and to maintain himself and those who were working with him while a long process was being brought to completion and the product marketed. In order to carry on the business to any advantage a considerable number of persons must be employed. ”

“ In those days printing was regarded as a profession rather than strictly a trade, and the printer was deeply impressed with the value and importance of his work, a value and importance which were not only claimed by him but recognized by his fellow citizens. It was very strongly felt that a man who made a book was engaged in a much more important piece of work than a man who made a pair of shoes or forged a sword. The more of this spirit of self respect, the more of this recognition of the importance of printing and the printed product 14we can recover today, the better off we shall be. ”

“ The print-collector carries a museum in a portfolio, or packs away a picture gallery, neatly, within the compass of one solander-box.
Again, the print-collector, if he will but occupy himself with intelligent industry, may, even to-day, have a collection of fine things without paying overmuch, or even very much, for them. All will depend upon the School or master that he particularly affects. ”

“ Good typography cannot be produced if preparation is slighted.
Quality printing is not accidental. Shops famed for the artistic excellence of their product have maintained their “shop style” despite changes in the force of workmen and executives, and this individuality, or “shop style,” as it is termed, has been obtained and retained only because the copy has been carefully prepared and the work has been intelligently laid out by some qualified person (artist, ad-writer or typographer) who understands shop preferences in the matter of style. ”

“ Art demands that the print be a part of the paper upon which it is impressed, much as the plant is a part of the earth in which its roots are buried, and utility demands that the print shall be strong and clear that reading may be made easy. The artist-printer lessens the contrast between print and paper by printing with gray ink on gray stock, brown ink on light brown stock, and so forth. The utility printer gets the maximum of contrast by printing with black ink on white stock. ”

“ The inexpert purchaser may like to know what is the sort of price asked generally by its producer, or by the dealer, or the Painter-Etchers’ Society—to which the print may be intrusted—for a new etching. I am here on ticklish ground; but I must make bold to answer, speaking broadly, “Far too much.” Later on—before I have quite done with the subject of the Lithograph—I shall return to the charge, on this matter of solid cash. But each class of work stands, in the matter of price, on its own peculiar footing; and here we talk, not of lithographs, but of etchings and dry-points. ”

“ It is the experience of most print-lovers that, starting with perhaps a mere casual liking for a certain landscape design, they progress gradually, in the course of years, to an unmeasured delight in the whole body of prints, and eventually find in them a unique source of repose and exaltation. ”

“ As we read the record, the printing of color comic supplements and their sale are component parts of the color comic supplement printing business. One firm or company may both print and sell; another may print yet sell through a third organization, as does International through King. The 'area of effective competition,' Standard Oil Co. ”

“ Prolonged exposure to sunlight is not desirable, since fading may result; dampness is to be guarded against because of the danger of mildew, a terrible foe; care in handling must be exercised, so that the print be not rubbed, creased, or torn. But if these elementary precautions are employed, the print will take care of itself.
It may be worth while for the benefit of the beginner to trace the steps that are taken by a collector between the time when he becomes the owner of a new print and the time when he puts it away in his portfolios as an established part of his collection. ”

“ LITHOGRAPHING.—Lithography, like copperplate, requires a special press, but a secondhand press can be bought for $25 or $30, and it is certainly the cheapest process known for short runs of pictorial color work; and any printer who has many orders for posters or picture printing would do well to investigate the process; for it is not difficult to draw on the stone, and, after the stones are bought, they last for years, and every new design simply necessitates the scouring off of the previous design, which will take a boy only about an hour. ”

“ When manuscripts were superseded by printed books the business of selling books naturally became a more important concern, although the London company established by printers and publishers was called the Company of Stationers. At first one man often undertook all the varieties of book production and bookselling, but gradually the four broad divisions of printers, publishers, second-hand booksellers, and auctioneers came into existence. ”

“ Many of the smaller paper box-making concerns are also operating private printing plants, and when managed efficiently, the printing department is a profitable investment for any paper box factory, large or small.
The writer knows of several large printing concerns, of New York City and Philadelphia, who are specializing in the production of wrappers and other printed matter for paper box manufacturers. All of these printing establishments are continually busy, and from all indications, are earning substantial profits on their work. ”

“ The name of the printer, the author, and the publisher was to be placed in every book, and, with a view to encouraging English printing, it was decreed further that no merchant or bookseller should import any English book printed abroad. No person was to erect a printing-press, or to let any [Pg 179] premises for the purpose of carrying on printing, without first giving notice to the Company, and no joiner or carpenter was to make a press without similar notice. ”

“ It took some time, however, to turn the printer into the manufacturer or tradesman pure and simple. Nothing is more striking than the high artistic character of the early printed books. The invention of printing, coming as it did when the illuminated MSS. had reached the period of its greatest glory and perfection, with the artistic traditions of fifteen centuries poured, as it were, into its lap, filling its founts with beautiful lettering, and guiding the pencil of its designers with a still unbroken sense of fitness and perfect adaptability ”

“ The first block-printers were men outside the pale of literature, and not indebted to any school or scholar for the suggestion of printing. The first merchantable products of printing on paper were not books, but playing cards and images. The earliest purchasers of printing were men who could neither read nor write. The card-makers, who labored for the amusement of boyish tastes, were the ignorant nurses of an art which has preserved the learning of the world. ”

“ It so happens that the peculiar conditions of the printing industry had a very marked effect in the changes which took place in the industrial world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The attempt is made to show the working of these influences in the treatment of certain parts of the subject. The main purpose, however, throughout has been to give the young printer of today an idea of the work and life of the old printers, who were very human men, engaged, though under different conditions, in the same struggle to earn their bread and butter which occupies our attention today. ”