Starting my own printing press (warning lots of pics)

[BobinSouthVA]

So it was back to the church again this morning to hunt for a few hours. I am trying to hit this site as much as possible. The construction is moving along much too quickly and soon the site will be inaccessible. The Church is building a new addition and expanding the parking lot onto an area that was once a empty, grassy lot.

A lot has happened on this site over the years. While I'm not sure what business occupied the location I do know that several buildings have been constructed and destroyed. The town claims to have had 3 major devastating fires in the past 300 years but I could not confirm that this location had fallen victim to any of them. One business that I am pretty sure occupied the location must have been a printing press. Previously I had found 4 plates on the site. Today I did not find anything but these plates. I now have 14 with different advertisements on them. Unfortunately while some are in great condition, others have taken a beating from the earth moving machines and one or two, I hate to admit, have gotten a good gouging from my digging tool . For some reason I had quite a bit of trouble pinpointing these. They would end up on the side of my holes, or plugs.

But I got revenge on my misbehaving digging tool, I broke it on a gigantic piece of whatever metal they used to make these plates.

Here is the lot of them.



This one is my favorite, but alas it looks like I got this one with my digger.
It says "Milk of Magnesia", along with a bunch of other words I can't make out



This is one I had found earlier.
It says "One Other Weekly Paper"




The next one a bit damaged I believe says
"Firstaid" and "United Drug Company, Boston"



I think this one has some script I can't make out.




This one appears to say "Symphony"



The next one is nice. I believe it says
"Gauzets" and "United Drug Company"



The next one has the most text and had been broken (very disappointing)
It is an advertisement for a piano company and the reader could print out the add and mail it in. It has Name and Address at the bottom.



The next one I believe says
"The Rexall Store" and once again "United Drug Company"



continued....

 

[BobinSouthVA]

Here are the rest of them

Thanks for looking and Merry Christmas

 

[davest]

very nice finds, the things at the bottom look like spacers that were used to keep the adds and columns in their proper spaces. I'm digging back in the memory vault about that because a friends dad worked as a printer using lead back in the day and I think I remember seeing those on his work desk.

 

[BobinSouthVA]

very nice finds, the things at the bottom look like spacers that were used to keep the adds and columns in their proper spaces. I'm digging back in the memory vault about that because a friends dad worked as a printer using lead back in the day and I think I remember seeing those on his work desk.

Yeah I was wondering about those.

Speaking of Lead, is this stuff dangerous in any way?

 

[tymcmurray]

Only if you feed it to the guy I met this morning. LOL
Those pieces are very collectable in any condition.
Very nice finds.

 

[BobinSouthVA]

Only if you feed it to the guy I met this morning. LOL
Those pieces are very collectable in any condition.
Very nice finds.

haha. np I'll put them inside some special brownies and send them along to him.