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Lifelong Project Just Slipped Through My Fingers

CalgaryPT

CalgaryPT

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Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. My lifelong ambition of restoring a Linotype machine just slipped through my fingers. For months I have been in conversation with a guy in Medicine Hat who owns one that has been in storage for 20+ years. He wanted to sell it as the museum that originally wanted it no longer does. I think he was close to selling it to me, but with the pandemic I suspect lots of guys wanting a long term restoration hobby are now forcing prices of things up. Someone offered him way more than I could pay.

I was SOOOO close. There was even a slim chance the machine could have belonged to my uncles’s print shop in Lethbridge as I know at least one of his machines ended up in Medicine Hat in the 1980’s. There were only a handful of them in Alberta left.

The machines revolutionized printing around the globe, but took a machinist to keep them running. All the old guys who worked in my uncle’s shop in Lethbridge until it closed in the 1980s were hobby machinists as well as printers. Linotypes have been called the 8th Wonder of the World and the “most complicated machine ever built.” Each machine had its own lead furnace built into it.

On the practical side I had no place to work on it. I would have had to build a illegal shed in the backyard to store and work on it. I’d been acquiring manuals and restoration materials for ages in hope that I would one day get my hands on one.

As sad as I am over this, it may be one of those childhood dreams best left unfulfilled. If ever there were a metal restoration project that looked like fun to me, this was it.

Oh well. At least someone made a movie out of it for iTunes before they disappeared altogether. Here’s the trailer:
 
I’m absolutely going to watch that movie. The trailer raised my heart rate


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Oh that's a kick in the pants...sorry to hear that CalgaryPT. You never know the new owner just might change his mind also. I'm surprised as heck that people would be bidding things up in this new covid world, I would have thought that something like that would have lost potential buyers.
 
Thanks guys. Even my wife was disappointed when I told her, and considering it would have been yet another machine, that's saying something. But I now know it is best as I just don't have the room. I'll watch the movie again instead. Still lots of fun.

My earliest memory of these machines when I was 5 or 6 years old was at night, when I would go back to the shop with my uncle to lock up. All the lights were out and you'd walk through the little in-house machine shop to get to the print floor. You'd see the furnaces glowing all night long, and the lead ingots hanging from chains into their crucibles where there'd be a lake of molten lead. So cool. Like a movie to a 5 year old.
 
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I still feel nostalgic when I rember touring the Hamilton Spectator when I was in grade 7, a mere 100 years ago (!) and watching those linotype machines... I even convinced them to give me a row of type (which I have lost throu the ages.

I always wanted a platten press and I almost bought one with 6 boxes of type - I was in a little car, on Vancouver Island, and no way to move it on the seller's schedule. I regret not being more resourceful.
 
There's a platten press in my future as my partner and I have dreams of a small letterpress shop. I love the smell of ink!
 
Sorry to hear that this opportunity slipped by; it's a shame. Hopefully, the deal will fall through and you will get another crack at it?

I believe that the Canadian Museum of Making has one of these machines.
 
You say you collected items to aid in a restoration? you may be able to get your hand in by advertising them, they presumably might be looking for such things
 
That's a bummer PT. Well don't give up. Karma has a way with these things.

Somewhat unrelated but inspired by the passion to restore, ever see this movie (Longitude)?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192263/
Well done as it intertwines the 2 stories, first of John Harrison the master clocksmith & then the person that restores his famous timepiece (and he has his own post war demons). It was possibly a PBS production & then later a mini TV series (not quite as good). I also read the book. Fascinating stuff. Visiting the British museums where this stuff can be seen is on my bucket list.
 
Hello David_R8 I assume you mean University of Regina? Small world. Sorry to hear that Calgary PT.
 
That's a bummer Calgary PT...shoulda-coulda is something that age multiplies as well, all to soon it becomes "I shoulda done that when I was able"!!!

A quantity of Lynotype alloy itself is what would interest me, commonly used to add hardness to COWW cast "freedom pills".
 
PeterT said:
That's a bummer PT. Well don't give up. Karma has a way with these things.

Somewhat unrelated but inspired by the passion to restore, ever see this movie (Longitude)?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0192263/
Well done as it intertwines the 2 stories, first of John Harrison the master clocksmith & then the person that restores his famous timepiece (and he has his own post war demons). It was possibly a PBS production & then later a mini TV series (not quite as good). I also read the book. Fascinating stuff. Visiting the British museums where this stuff can be seen is on my bucket list.
Click to expand...
Thanks. Longitude is on my reading list. I think many of us on this forum could spend the rest of our lives touring British museums. When I was small I hated history. Now I love it, especially the history of machines. I just downloaded A History of the World in 100 Objects, so that's next on my list....then Longitude. Some of these books lend themselves quite well to Audible, and can be listened to while in the shop. Others I prefer to read oldschool, or at least Kobo oldschool.
 
historicalarms said:
That's a bummer Calgary PT...shoulda-coulda is something that age multiplies as well, all to soon it becomes "I shoulda done that when I was able"!!!

A quantity of Lynotype alloy itself is what would interest me, commonly used to add hardness to COWW cast "freedom pills".
Click to expand...
The guy I was talking to had already sold off most of the lead ingots over the years.
 
David_R8 said:
There's a platten press in my future as my partner and I have dreams of a small letterpress shop. I love the smell of ink!
Click to expand...
You would have loved my uncle's shop David. It even had ruling machines—long oak frame machines with conveyer belts and inked thread that put the lines on ruled paper. The entire shop smelled of ink and was deafening during the day with all the presses operating.
 
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