Pre-PowerPoint Technology?

December 8, 2007 7:52 PM

I have a set of brass letter tiles. What was their original purpose?

This would be so much easier with a photo, but I don't have the tools for that, so I hope my description will suffice:

I have an almost-complete alphabet set of metal tiles, made of brass about the the thickness of a penny, and about 1" tall. The set includes numerals, blanks, and some punctuation marks. They resemble metal Scrabble tiles.

Each tile has a single letter pressed/cut in relief into the surface. The font is a very plain san-serif. The letter is not reversed, so they are not for printing.

The sides of each are straight, and the width varies with the width of the letter (no kerning). The top and bottom of each tile are slightly curved and beveled. They obviously would be sorted as words into a frame (not found yet).

There are several of each letter and they come in a plastic tray organizer. The tray had a fair amount of fine multi-colored 'dust' that felt like plastic or vinyl. So it looks like these were a sort of mold to make a sign or label.

Finally, I found these in the 'Business' department at my high school in a cabinet with mimeograph paper, infrared transparency paper, and other materials for graphic production of the pre-computer era.

How were these letters used, what else should I look for to use them as originally intended, and what creative uses could I otherwise turn them to?

posted by pgoes to media & arts (18 comments total)

Without a picture I can't be sure, but it sounds like blanks for MAKING letters for a printing press. You'd pour molten lead into the blank, let it cool, remove it, and use it to set type.
posted by Malor at 8:02 PM on December 8, 2007

My mom used to do signpainting in the '70s, and she had a set of Leroy lettering tools. Basic idea was that you traced along the edges of the engraved letters, and the pattern was transferred mechanically to a pen on the drawing. Used a lot in drafting when you needed better than handprinted lettering. (Neat feature: it could do italics too.)

Maybe this is something similar?
posted by smackfu at 8:47 PM on December 8, 2007

When you say relief, do you mean the letter shapes are punched all the way through, or just partly?

These could have been used as office signs, e.g. "PRINCIPAL", "NURSE", etc.

It's also possible they were for some sort of office directory signage with backlighting (hence the punchouts).

It could also have been used for more frequently-changeable signage, e.g. "PARENT TEACHER ASSOCIATION MEETING 7 PM", again with backlighting.

In any case, there's a lot of consonance between signmaking and printing.
posted by dhartung at 9:13 PM on December 8, 2007

If they're indented and in normal orientation, then they couldn't be used for casting, since the casting process would reverse them (i.e. mirror image).
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:23 PM on December 8, 2007

Not Leroy, I think.. I was thinking that too, but a Leroy stencil would have the entire alphabet on one ruler like object, so that you can rapidly switch from one letter to the next. Unbelievably, Wikipedia does not appear to have a Leroy stencil page!
posted by Chuckles at 9:35 PM on December 8, 2007

SCDB: The casting process would produce units of type (reversed) -- which would then be inked and printed onto paper (re-reversing the letters to normal orientation).
posted by LobsterMitten at 9:47 PM on December 8, 2007

Quite right. I wasn't thinking.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:22 PM on December 8, 2007

You're saying that the letters are pressed into the metal, but not all the way through, right? So they're not brass stencils. And since the image isn't raised (or reversed) they're not used for stamping. No high school anywhere was pouring their own lead type in the 80s or 90s. Maybe printing from archaic metal type for a school newspaper, but there'd be more evidence and it woudn't look like what you found. My college graphic design department had dozens of old metal fonts and a few printing presses and what you describe doesn't sound at all like it was used in that kind of endeavour.

Is there a date or any identifying mark on the plastic case?

The presence of duplicates suggests that the characters were intended to be put together rather than used serially for stenciling or tracing. If the stamped letters were distinct enough to be seen from a distance it could be housing or mailbox address signage, but that sounds like it's not the case. The letters are too shallow. The kit doesn't sound extensive enough to support institutional usage; you'd quickly run out of letters trying to make nameplates for the entire school, though they'd be of use for an individual teacher's desk.

An alternate use I can think of is as a base for rubbings. Put together the word you want to reproduce, place a sheet of paper over the letters and rub with a pencil or charcoal to make an impression as you might with a tombstone or other engraving. This kind of project would be a more likely to show up in the art department, not a business classroom, so it's a stretch. Is there any carbon paper stored with the letters?
posted by Jeff Howard at 12:34 AM on December 9, 2007

One other thing... Any use for reproduction would tend to conserve the actual brass tiles. You would use them (stencil, trace, print) etc and then put them back in the case. Maybe lose a stray once in a while, but you'd expect to have a more or less complete kit.

The fact that you have "several of each letter" yet the kit is only "almost complete" suggests that some letters are in fact missing. At least one of every letter would have been in the original kit. Depending on how many letters are missing from the case, you can reasonably guess how the letters were used. Is the case half empty or nearly full? If there was room for dozens of each letter to begin with and now there are only "several" then we can infer that the letters were being used in some permanent way (as signage?) and thus not finding their way back into the box. If most of the letters are there, do they appear to be well worn?
posted by Jeff Howard at 1:29 AM on December 9, 2007

A super nice anagram set, perhaps? Or one of those things they use in buildings to indicate that, for example, the conference room is that way and the cafeteria is the other way?
posted by anaelith at 3:05 AM on December 9, 2007

TOTAL speculation, but I can imagine a machine that makes those plastic nameplate signs (you know, a black plastic layer carved away to reveal white underneath?) that uses those brass letter things as a jig. You'd spell out "Bob Smith" in those letters in a frame that you would then load into this machine, which would then use one stylus to trace those letters, and another stylus to make the identical moves on the piece of plastic.

Like a key duplicating machine, sort of? About a minute into that video is the machine I'm talking about.

The vinyl dust would fit into this scenario, too.
posted by dirtdirt at 4:54 AM on December 9, 2007

So, essentially, a mix between Dhartung and Smackfu's answers.
posted by dirtdirt at 4:56 AM on December 9, 2007

I think dirtdirt is right—probably for a pantographic sign engraver.

If these were matrices for casting letterpress type, you'd only have one of each letter.
posted by adamrice at 7:10 AM on December 9, 2007

Yeah, I would guess some kind of pantographic engraving templates too. You can see an example of what I'm thinking of here, in the description of the construction of the Periodic Table Table. Scroll down about three-quarters of the way, to the paragraph that begins "Fortunately a local jewelry store went out of business..."
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:34 AM on December 9, 2007

The engraving templates idea sound compelling, but they wouldn't be used for that purpose in a business classroom. Show them to the shop teacher and see if he recognizes them.
posted by Jeff Howard at 10:59 AM on December 9, 2007

Some more pics of brass font templates for engraving. Maybe even a similar plastic case?
posted by Jeff Howard at 11:15 AM on December 9, 2007

My grandfather worked for a monument company and they used a set of these to get the name on the tombstone.


The positive letters were arranged in a frame, rubbed with a solid graphite rod (iirc), and tightly covered with a type of wax parchment paper. This paper was then rubbed with a smooth stone, transferring the graphite to the paper.

The parchment paper was taped to a rubber covering over the monument and rubbed again with a smooth stone. This transferred the graphite to the covering. When the paper was removed you had the positive name on the monument. After cutting out the font (removing the interior of each letter) with an x-acto knife...the piece was sandblasted and when the rubber coating was removed the tombstone was ready to be placed in the cemetery.

Nowadays everything is done on computer...sometimes even the actual cutting of the granite.

Probably not used for this in a high school setting.
posted by bach at 7:00 PM on December 9, 2007

Jeff & DirtDirt, Thank you, those photos are it exactly! The box top does say "Hermes" on it too. Tomorrow I will look for the pantograph & other parts to the system.
posted by pgoes at 10:02 PM on December 9, 2007