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Friday Slide Show: The Old Embosser
4 October 2024
We spent 30 years of our life working for a weekly magazine that had been founded more than half a century before we came on board. All production from typesetting through paste-up to lithography to printing to binding to mailing was handled in house.
After World War II, the publisher acquired enough military surplus to establish an offset printing plant to serve the weekly. A process camera, carbon arcs, a darkroom, platemaking supplies, a 17x22-inch Webendorfer offset press, a Baumfolders and a big Craftsman cutter to trim the books. It had everything.
So we learned a lot and when our turn came, we innovated with the best of them, introducing computer typesetting before taking advantage of the first personal computers to introduce automated page layout, modem transmissions, spreadsheets, commercial and classified advertising scheduling and billing, image scanning, you name it.
And when the World Wide Web launched, we lept in, making the publication among the first on the Web. The world changed and we evolved with it.
But in the shop, you could still a find a shelf of old Standard Underwood No. 5 manual typewriters (in case of emergency) or a single-staple magazine stitcher or Addressograph plates or, well, any number of things that had once been needed.
We only recently took possession of this corporate seal paper embosser as a memento of our service. It was not as useful as it might have been, plagued by a misplaced apostrophe. But it had more than the required strength to do the job and a finish graced with a flourish that only added to its ceremonial function.
Both of which reminded me of how things used to be done. With strength to spare and a touch of class.
And it still works, too.
The seal mentions the company was incorporated in 1914, making the embosser 110 years old, but the company, founded in 1905, was publishing before the 1906 fire and quake in San Francisco. And the first publication in the city to resume publishing after the disaster. Which it was again in 1989.
We thought the embosser's elegance -- if not extravagance -- worth celebrating with a few photos. The days of getting things done with an extra flourish may be over but they shouldn't be forgotten.
They can still inspire.
