Paper Ponderings: Lovely letters arrive

Late last week I collected a hefty 15kg parcel from the Post Office.

We had been fortunate enough to purchase some old Italian wood type letters from New Zealand. Terrie Reddish a fellow letterpress lover had put them up for sale and I got in just in time to purchase them.

'Full' alphabets of old wooden type are getting harder and harder to find, and we had been really wanting to buy some tall type - about 10cm tall. These letters were about 13.5cm tall so they certainly fitted the bill and hence my speedy fingertips to keyboard and across the airwaves to NZ.

We enjoyed opening the box - it does still feel like Christmas to me when I get parcels in the mail which I know hold magic.

It took me a while to work out what the letters on top were about - and then I worked out they were all letters that have descenders - the bits of the letter that hang below the baseline where we normally write. So they were even taller than 13.5mmm and hence needed to be packed slightly differently.

p, g, y.

And here I just loved how they interlock together, without messing up your line height. I so often think of letterpress of old as being pure genius.

And then I just fiddled and played with a a few words. I forgot to say how beautiful the lettering is as well. Its not just a plain jane set of wood type - they are Art Nouveau elegant!