GODZILLA vs. MEGALON Newspaper Advertisement Printing Block (1976)

 

We have talked about these before, and looked at both ends of the process, but in short, this was how newspaper ads used to be made.  This is a wooden block which has a metal slab connected to it, which was then set by a typesetter, forming the layout for a a vintage newspaper page! Here is another view, which better illustrates what I'm describing:

This one measures 3.5 x 5 inches, but they of course were all sizes.  The printing surface was made by pouring molten metal into a mold (I was under the impression that lead was used, but in this case the seller told me it was actually zinc), which was actually made of paper pulp and looked like this:

To see more views of this KING KONG vs. GODZILLA ad mold, see my post about it.  The metal piece was then attached to the block that you see, and embossed with a code number on the side.  

Here is the image flipped, showing us what the ad looked like:

In fact, it's very close to this ad, from the MEGALON pressbook:

But, interestingly, not quite identical.  Apparently the ads in the molds were often unique?

It goes without saying that these things were often thrown away.  I'm sure any molds that survived do so only because they were unused.  I can only imagine how busy a vintage newspaper printing facility was, and probably had ads and their molds running out the windows. At one time, I bet you could obtain dumpster-loads of these sorts of things...now gone and forgotten!