Apparently, the surface of this piece of lead type is only 4mm x 4mm!? That’s one sixteenth of an inch! I don’t know why the text is right-reading but even just as a photo, this thing is pretty powerful. Apparently it is a souvenir from a visit to the Type Museum in Kennington. Read more at wemadethis.
I have a piece of type with the Lord’s Prayer on it that I inherited from my grandfather. I think the height of the whole thing is about 18pt. The prayer on mine is backwards, so it seems to be meant for actual printing, and it’s also incised into the face rather than raised, so it would print as a black square with white text. Unfortunately the shaft got a little crushed, so it can’t be printed unless I print it by hand.
Type foundries cast and gave away such pieces as promotional material to demonstrate their capabilities.
See page 10 of this pdf for a picture of a similar sort cast on 8-point type by ATF:
http://www.printinghistory.org/htm/journal/articles/31-32-Cost-Benton.pdf
Apparently ATF also cast the full Lord’s Prayer onto 4-point bodies as well!
4 pt = .055″
Thanks, Jodi and Craig. I’ve seen plenty of miniature print exhibitions but these take it to a whole new extreme.
the text may not be backwards b/c they may have used an off-set press? i think that way it would have printed so that it wasn’t backwards…