Gadd's Zinco
GADD'S LETTERPRESS LINE BLOCK
When the Society's Chairman, Tony Hocking, made an appeal for any Yateley artifacts people might have had squirrelled away, he was given a letterpress line block said to be used for printing bags, but more likely cake boxes. The illustration shows the impression made by this stamp, which is called in the trade a Zinco since the printing surface is made of Zinc.
Tony Hocking penned an interesting article in the Society's February 1998 Newsletter about the block and Gadd's Stores. This immediately elicited a very long footnote to the article from our newsletter printer at that time, Tony Spencer of Words & Spaces &... explaining who invented these zincos (Firmin Gollot & Co in 1859), how the blocks were etched (by nitric acid using a resist called Dragon's Blood), why zinc was used (it's cheaper than other metals), and why it's 100mm in diameter and not 4 inches (it's almost exactly 24 pica ems in printers' measure). Tony Spencer also speculated why there is a saw cut across the right hand side of the block. Although the block would have been the property of Gadd & Co Ltd perhaps the printer did not receive full payment of his bill, so may have rendered the block unusable.
Back to 2003 Exhibition Main Page
Page written by Peter Tipton for the Yateley Society's 2003 Exhibition: Adult Education in Yateley mounted in Yateley Library during Local History Month, for which the theme was Adult Education. This exhibition was held in conjunction with Yateley Workers Education Association (WEA) -- now in 2008 defunct. Pages may have been updated as a result of recent research.
(C) The Yateley Society, 2003 and 2008
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