What is the correct name for these Mercedes printing plates please ?

The metal may be zinc- I found a pile of similar plates some years back that were used by a printer to print on plastic carrier bags for local businesses. However the ones I found had the lettering raised and the back of the plate was flat.

These are called “Advertising Cuts” or “cuts” for short. They are type high. Usually .935 to .937 depending on what type of press and or other foundry type you have invested in as a printer.

They are used in letter press work or on a Vandercook flatbed press. But in most cases wooden type fonts are used on the Vandercook for internal store signage needs. On the more commercial runs of larger quantities metal foundry type is used on Kluge presses.

The zinc or copper plates prior to mounting on a wood block were first painted with an acid resist coating, then exposed to an actinic light source [usually under glass and using an arc lamp] were exposed. Then submerged in an acid bath and etched in the areas where the negative was black thus creating a positive but wrong reading image on the plate. Once etched to the proper depth, the plate was pulled and dropped into a wash bath to stop the etching process.

A product called “dragon’s blood” was used during the acid etching to keep the fine lines and type from under cutting by the acid, which if allowed to undercut, those fine lines without a wide based would break off during the press run when under pressure.

The plates were mounted on precision made wooden blocks to bring them up to the .937 inches in height needed to be level with the metal type slugs of foundry type.

All the individual letters of foundry type were kept in type face font cabinets which I am sure everyone has seen those wooden cases sold that had all the small rectangles in them. Those are called California Type Drawers and each drawer held a certain font size of type and 100’s of small individual letters all arranged in an order of use much like a QWERTY typewriter.

The Journeyman type setter would be handed a handwritten sheet with the news story on it and would then proceed to hand pick every single letter in a word, sentence and paragraph and lock that type into blocks on a device much like the holder for Scrabble tiles. Then that composed sentence would be placed into what is called a lock up chase.

This was amazing and very time consuming because not only did each character had to be pulled but it had to be done in “reverse” order or what is called a mirror image [wrong reading]. Took years to master and be accurate and quick at it. The advertising block cuts were inserted into the column rows as space allowed in between the news stories just like you see in modern newspapers.

Advertisers paid to have the photos and copy for their ads created and converted into a “cut”. Then they bought space in the newspaper and paid by the column inch. In America a column inch is 11 picas wide [or 1.83″ wide] x 1″ deep.

In the case of your Mercedes cut[s] measure the height [top to bottom of the wooden block or the back side of the plate] and Mercedes would have paid a fee per inch x those inches. Then paid by the “issue” of number of times per week, month the ad ran.

The type and cut are all inked in relief, meaning on the high, flat surface [planographic in art terms] by a leather in older days and rubber in more modern types, roller over the flat surface and deposit ink on the flat surface. then as the press closed and pressed the paper against the inked type fonts and inserted advertising cuts, the image would be transferred to the paper as a black “Correct” reading image.

This process is called an “offset image” and is the bases for the modern high speed litho presses used today and why art reproductions done on the modern presses using thin plates now days are called “Offset” Lithographs. OFFSET being the keyword of the transfer of the ink from the metal type to the paper [substrate].

On a Kluge style letter press the inking rollers roll up and auto by mechanical means as the press opens, a stack of blank paper stock that was previously loaded is pulled one sheet at a time off of the “feeder” hopper and slide into proper aligned register against side guides, then the press closes and pressed against the whole story composition of type that has been locked into the platen side of the presses. Then opens again and a second arm with air suckers pulls that sheet off and releases it into the catcher bin underneath the fed stack.

These style letterpresses presses are called “clam shell style” because of this whole opening and closing of one side of the press against the other. Many decades later many of these style presses were converted into embossing or die cut presses. Many decades ago, when I and my first partner started our first print shop JME Graphics in Connecticut, we had two old “Thompson” letter presses which we converted to die cut out the sheets we printed. I have hand fed tons and tons of sheets into those things. Also still had an old Kluge press we printed on. We used all of these for special effects on fine art prints though.

I saw about a dozen of them at an auction a few years ago. I recognized them right away and told my wife Susan watch this, I will get these for a song. I knew that nobody knew what they were. Yep got all 12 for a dollar $1. They all were for Carnation Malted Milk and Carnation Milk Products.

I did not use the word “cuts” as the lead in or first words in the title or description because I knew most buyers would not know that term. I used Etched, Engraved, and put cuts toward the end.

I sold all of them within a few months. I sold the small 1” ones for $29.95. Here is one of the links from Worthpoint.
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/carnation-malted-milk-etched-engraved-1867901379

One of the things I did was to ink up the cut and make a hand pressed paper image of the ad block. That way I had a photo of the image “correct reading”, so buyers could see what the advertising said. Make sure to clean the ink off the metal using lacquer thinner so it won’t dry on the metal surface.

Interesting though the link for the smallest ones above was the only ones Worthpoint picked up and is showing. So, FYI, the others sold between $40 and $75 each. BUT with it being Mercedes Benz, that might be worth even more.

So, there you have a rough, brief art school history of metal foundry type, advertising cuts and how they were combined and printed.

I suggest you also hit up Wiki and search on letterpress advertising cuts, foundry type faces and things like that.

Good luck and sorry for the “wall of text”, Jay calls it.

Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art in Atlanta
The team at MDC Concepts, Inc.
Susan, Lisa, Jean, Karen, Christie and Michael

• This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by MDC Galleries & Fine Art.

The wall of texts are actually amazing. My early career was as a graphic artist / typesetter, spending a lot of time working with printers and their printing presses. And still, I learned from your input here. Thanks.

Hey Mike, then as you well know, the person performing the amber and rubylith separations was known as “The Stripper” which outside of the printing industry could mean something else entirely. I did a small bit of stripping myself. LOL

I was trained at 16 years old to start learning and running typesetting on the early photo setters where the IBM hole punch would run the 10-12 point text (depending upon which lens you used) and the first EditWriter. Typesetting up until that point had been a man’s job, and just like you said, men would sit at keyboards and slide the little metal letters into place backwards and upside down to create printed material. I saw them in action working in no air conditioning, many of them typing in suits that they wore to work everyday.

I created all sorts of advertising, print, etc. Went on to become a Creative Director, worked with Bill Gates for a bit s he got up and running, then start building Internet websites after a 12 year old kid showed me how and accomplished a lot of internet “firsts”. Eventually, I became an IT Project Manager Consultant running multi-million dollar projects for major corps. Mostly doing project recoveries, rescuing IT projects in big-big trouble. Got burnt out and took a break to take care of my families real estate properties and finances. Listing the older one’s estates as they transition into senior care. Times gone by.

Sorry for the delay.

Just get a regular office stamp inking pad and treat the cut just as you would a rubber office stamp. Place the metal side down onto the ink pad and push it down a few times to get enough ink on the metal. The make an impression onto a pile of 3 or 4 sheets of plain computer paper. You can do this several times trying different pressure on the ink pad and on the paper until you get a fairly dark impression. Then photograph that paper image and include it as one of your listing photos.

Then wipe the ink off the metal plate with a paper towel or soft cloth using lacquer thinner, acetone, nail polish remover [which is mostly acetone], or even lighter fluid. Just make sure you get the ink wiped off before it dries and sets up on you. Much easier to wipe off when damp than dry. It will dry fast after you make an impression because of such a thin layer left behind.

Good luck
mike at mdcgfa

It’s weird that they used right-hand justification on the text. I have a box of letterpress advertising dies I need to list. I’ve been looking for a used ink pad that’s not dried out. It’s insane how much they sell for new; I can’t justify buying one to use for only a half hour.