Harry Houdini buys a Ford

[Rob]

Illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini purchased a Ford Model K touring car in 1907 for the purpose of transporting it to Europe for use while performing.

[Rob]

Agents advertisement:

[Wayne Sheldon]

Second clipping, Harry Houdini Buys a "Gord" 6-Cylinder???

Interesting typo.

In 1907, even major newspapers did a lot of hand typesetting. I find myself wondering who and how the error was made. Assuming it was an error, and not some other thing I am not aware of?

Part of my curiosity stems from some background in typesetting. An enterprising uncle, that died in a plane crash when I was twelve, among many other things had a small printing shop set up in the back room of another business. His press and much other equipment was from the 1890s. After his death, one of his sons while in high school managed to get the printshop moved from the business place into an old shop building on his mother's place. He made pretty good money as a kid printing all sorts of things, both for sale by him, or special order for other people. I made a few dollars doing typesetting or running the press for him.
A couple years later, when I was in high school, they still had an elective course in typesetting! Even then I thought it was a stupid thing to do, as typesetting as a career choice was really out of date. However, school and I did not get along very well, so just because I enjoyed it, I took that course for a couple years. I have often joked that if I live long enough? I might become the world's oldest "professionally trained" typesetter?

[OilyBill]

When I was in High School, in my sophomore year, I took a course in printing, and we had to pick a type box, go through it and sort and correct all the letters. ("Watch your "p"'s and "q"s!) and then print an 8 page folio with typeset print in a printing frame, fully justified so it looked professional, using a platen press and hand feeding the paper. When the folio paper was folded, it had to make a coherent 8 page section of a book. It was a LOT of work, for an process that had already been long-abandoned by 1973. But we also learned silkscreening and process camera work, and I still have some of the negatives I produced for that in a file somewhere. I am glad I learned the process, as it was interesting to actually DO what I had read about previously.

The year I graduated from high school, I stumbled across an old time printing shop on a back street in our little town. He had 3 platen presses of various sizes, dozens of type cases in various styles and sizes, composing desks, and everything else you could imagine that a print shop from 1920 would have. That was probably when it was dated from. I visited it only once, and the elderly proprietor showed me around the shop, and was amazed I knew what most of the stuff was used for. He was unaware the local high school even still had a course on letterpress printing. I left for school in California, and went back there a couple years later, and the shop was empty and had been cleared out. Probably all sold for scrap. I never did find out the old guy's name.

The town put out a bicentennial book on the history of the town in 1976, and that book itself is now a historical document, showing things in 1976 that no longer even exist today, like the town shoe factory, which is long gone. Our little town library, which had been housed in a small, 2 room storefront, was suddenly endowed by a local resident who had owned a show machinery company, and was quite wealthy. The new library he endowed was 20 times the size of that tiny original building, was built on a giant lot near the city hall, and was 3 stories tall with huge columns out in front. He approved all the plans, and had a great sense of style and taste, and ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT having a typical anonymous government building. I was last back a couple years ago, and the building is as beautiful and impressive as it was when it was built in the 1970's.

[Wayne Sheldon]

Well William May, hello to a fellow typesetter!