Tuesday Treasures - September 17, 2024

 My son and I found some interesting vintage items at St. Vincent de Paul not long ago.  Well, I found one of the items, brought it home and my son said we should go get more!

These are printing blocks for newspaper photos.  I am not clear about copyright.  Usually the content created by them is owned by the newspaper, or the creator, or the artist, or whoever commissioned them.  "However, if the blocks are merely tools used to reproduce copyrighted content, they may not have separate copyright protection." Microsoft Copilot    

The woman in the upper right looks like a poodle in this negative view!

They were made by converting the original photo to halftone by re-photographing it through a screen with tiny holes of various sizes.  It was then etched chemically onto the metal plate.  So with just black ink the smaller dots come out looking grey.  Now it's all done digitally. 

The one I brought home is a family image.

I love the children's eyes! 

This one is wrapped in paper, with this notation, and the man's photo on the other side.  We don't want to open it to see what "Cut" means.  Was it cut from newspaper publication?  Is it an order to make the plate?

My son tried a few to see how they would print. 

This is a radio broadcaster or DJ from KFRC, San Francisco.  With some research we may be able to find out who he is, and date the plates.  Right now we're saying 1940s.  KFRC was the callsign used on 610 AM from 1927 until 2005.  It's the one we all listened to in high school, myself in the early '70s and my brothers a decade and more earlier.  We thought they would be local newspaper plates, but turns out they're big city ones!  

Not something I've seen before, and an interesting find.  Not particularly valuable (although KFRC memorabilia may be collectible), but more than we paid, which was a few dollars each.