Saturday, February 7, 2009

More Cool Stuff

The flea market in the summer has its good weeks and bad weeks. Sometimes, it's table after table of crap they couldn't pay you to take. Other times, you have to make several trips back to the car because of all the great stuff you've gotten, and later on, you can't quite believe your luck. On the same day I got the advertising piece, I found a whole tray of printing press blocks. There were about ten of them. I took some pictures of my favorites for you.

Country Kitchen

Faces from the Past


The Country Kitchen one is very large, about 3 x 5 maybe, and definitely has a neat graphic appeal. But the faces are quite striking, too. They're different from the rest of the blocks in this tray, which seem to be carved out of wood and plated with metal. The images on these are engraved right into the copper. Also, unlike the rest, their use isn't terribly obvious. Also on my shelf are logos of an area union, an auto club, an organization for antique boat enthusiasts, etc. Why were the images of these two women so important to someone that they had these blocks made to be used over and over again? What did they do with the pictures?

I also wonder how the differences in construction of the blocks would translate into the reproduction of the image. Anyone who knows much about printing is welcome to comment! Even if you don't, I hope you enjoyed seeing them. I enjoy looking at them every day.