Edinburgh at Work

Speedspools

Gayfield Place Lane

The last hot metal monotype printers in Edinburgh

Illustrations from a book published in 1939

Edinburgh at work  -  Speedspools - monotype printers -  The Workbench  -  1995

©  Copyright: Peter Stubbs                            Photograph from book published 1939

 

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   Edinburgh at work  -  Speedspools - monotype printers ©

 

Speedspools

Monotype Keyboard and Caster

The illustrations in this book show a monotype keyboard and caster in use.  this method of hot metal printing would have been widely used when the photos were taken.  This book was published in 1939.

The photographs below show similar equipment still in use in the early- 1990s by Speedspools, a small printing company based at Gayfield Place Lane, Edinburgh.

Speedspools

Here are the photos taken at Speedspools in the early-1990s.  These photos were not posed, but look very similar to the photos in the book published over fifty years earlier.

 

I photographed this book at the top of this page in 1993, but I cannot now recall the name or the publisher of the book.

 

Speedspools

Edinburgh at Work

   

 

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