Photoengravings used in The Inland Printer

The collection contains roughly 90 photoengraving blocks, including one die and one solid lead block. The blocks feature images relating to printing history, including portraits of famous printers, their printer’s marks, libraries, printing houses, and machines. The blocks in this collection were collected by Cathy Dillon, who describes the collection as such: The “Bullen Blocks” are Printer’s Blocks from the 1920’s. I have been told by a knowledgeable source that these images may be reproduced using old ‘letterpress’ equipment.

The bulk of the ATF library is at the Columbia University Butler Library of rare books and manuscripts. Some of the library was sold off separately, before Columbia’s purchase in the 1930s. The ‘Bullen Collection’ at Columbia includes some treasures and truly rare examples. …

Perhaps this box of blocks was left behind or never included. I suggest that these represent Bullen’s personal favorites—as few of them appeared not only in The Inland Printer; but also in articles that appeared in another trade publication—“The Printing Art” in 1918.

The ‘Of a Certain Age’ [Dillon’s antiques shop] “Bullen Blocks” were acquired by me in a barter agreement: in 2012, in return for helping to clean out the basement of Mr. D. Squires, who passed away in 2006, we agreed I could keep or sell the carton of printing blocks. Mr. Squires worked at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC, and left behind a very interesting assortment of items.

The images were extremely difficult to identify, but some clearly were labeled “Bullen” in loopy handwriting, in pencil, with a month and year on the back. A special block, quite heavy, wrapped up in extra newspaper was the bookplate of the ATF library. …

The work of matching up the images with the issues of ‘The Inland Printer’ in which they appear was done by me, working mainly with computer print outs from Hathi Trust and Google books. The matching issues were purchased in June 2013 from Mr. Scott DeWolfe of DeWolfe and Wood booksellers in Alfred, Maine.

Topics include: Plantin, Gutenberg, Coster, Bruce, Feyrabendt, Tory, Bowyer, Cave, Ratdolt, Konig, Morris, DeVinne, Hoe, Benton, Updike, Goudy, Franklin, Oxford, Saur, Clephane, Banned books, libraries, machines, Larmessin’s Printer’s Costume.

Though the blocks are attributed to Bullen, they do not appear exclusively in his column, Collectanea Typographia, but in other articles in the issues as well.