Lord’s prayer on single type?
I am in the process of sorting 3 type cabinets worth of type I purchased and came across this in one of the ornament drawers. It is an ATF pamphlet with some tissue paper that contained three different size single type. A 4pt, 8pt, and 12pt that according to the pamphlet contain the entire Lord’s prayer. They are dirty and are soaking at the moment but I could see something is in fact there. Has anyone else come across anything like this before? The pamphlet says this demonstrates ATF’s superior process in manufacturing type.
John
That was a pretty cool promo piece. I believe it was done using their Benton engraver.
Daniel Morris
The Arm Letterpress
Brooklyn, NY
Hey Daniel,
You are correct. It mentions the Benton. It’s just really hard to imagine this was possible.
John
Hello,
A wonderful find.
I did read about this before-
http://groton-machine.org:8080/links/prayer.html
Thanks for letting us know there are some still out there.
Jim
Sorry guys,
It is-
http://Gorton-Machine.org
Thanks,
Jim
Hello Jim,
Thanks for the link. I have since used some magnification to look at the type and can see something is there on the larger two of the three pieces. I still find it hard to believe they did this on the 4pt piece. Amazing.
John
I’ve got the ‘lord’s prayers in Dutch and in English. The Dutch was cast by either Enschedé or the Amsterdam Typefoundry, the English version, complete with a printed sheet was cast by Monotype.
I’ve got a handful of these as well, along with one inscribed with the “Ave Maria” or something like that. I’ve also come across a few Linotype promotional mats, stapled on a card, that will cast the Lord’s Prayer or the Alphabet in miniature on a 12 pt slug. Very neat stuff! I’ve never printed with mine, as I don’t want to separate them from their presentation packages… But if you print yours I’d love to see the result! Neat find.
Many of these “Wonders of Typemaking” souvenirs were given out by ATF. This is what they said about the 4 pt Lord’s Prayer: The matrix was cut, using the Benton, directly into nickel-alloy metal. It was the longest version of the Prayer, which was 66 words and 271 characters (including punctuation). It was spaced on 13 lines; of .0002 in. ea. The depth of cut was .00015 in. The box that I have has a date of 1927 on one of the included pieces (not a piece of type)
Dave Greer
when I took priniting in 1960 our instructor showed us a piece of type with the lords prayer on it. We were all sceptical as we could see nothing, always wondered to this day it he was pulling our legs or what. Nice to finally know he was legit.
Thanks for all the helpful insight. I am not sure all three pieces that were wrapped in tissue with the pamphlet have the prayer on them. I can plainly see it on the 8pt piece, but, not the 12pt. The 4pt is ridiculus to see even with magnification. With magnification, I can see the words “Our Father” where the type is cleaner on the 8pt. I would have been skeptical too Vern if not able to see anything. It’s an amazing feat to think how this was done with a pantograph type machine.
John
I have one given to me by my supervisor who’s father in law started the Baltimore Type Company. Where he got it or if did it himself I don’t know. Ron
Hey folks..new poster here. I’ve been doing some research on some artifacts from my Dad’s collection of mostly R.R. Donnelly & Sons/Lakeside Press items when I ran across this message board. I have two of these type with the Lord’s Prayer on them. These were cast by the Lakeside Press …no date given. They are in an envelope with history of C.H. Beeler and again were used as a promotional item. Does anyone have any info on the Lakeside Press versions? I also have one of the printing plates used to print the farewell message from the last issue of the weekly edition of LIFE magazine December 1972. My Dad worked for Donnelly’s for 44 years.