Hand-set type isn't linotype. Linotype is, or used to be, set on a machine I've heard about but never seen, a Mergenthaler linotype setter, my mother used to be a typesetter, started on a Mergenthaler and then phototypesetting.
My mother will have to refresh my memory about Mergenthalers, I remember that they had pots of hot metal and would pour the metal as you typed on a keyboard, and every so often a line of type would come out with some kind of noise, ergo, the name linotype.
Hand-set type is either cast metal with a rectangular base, or nailed to a wood base. Old-time typesetters would pick up each letter, one at a time, and place (set) them in rectangular chases, the type would be set mirror-image to the printed copy. I never knew a real hand-set typesetter, but they did books and newspapers and were very fast, I've heard. I've known people who used hand-set type for specialty printing, like posters or business cards, but they were usually pressmen and not very fast typesetters.
By the time I got into printing, newspapers were done photolithography, but with "engraved" (acid-etched) metal sheets. I worked at an engraving shop that did metal "cuts" for ads, and special things, like the page for "Yes Virginia There Is A Santa Claus", which was re-used every year and on copper, I believe.
But now I think everyone does offset. Much easier, cheaper, and usually better quality. |
