Small Treasures, and diamonds in the rough.

Small Treasures, and Diamonds in the Rough

It was a busy weekend here around the sarcasm clan, my sisters birthday was this weekend, my daughters soccer game and a few other events and deadlines that pretty much guaranteed I was not going to get some quality time with my press and other equipment. So when I finally had some down time I spent it cleaning some of the Type Cases that came with the press, pulling all of the little pieces out of the section, vacuuming it then wiping it out, and returning the letters back to their slot. I only finished 3 of them its a little time consuming, and I really need to figure out a way to clean the letters off as well. This is going to be the hard part, small delicate lead letters will take time to wash the dust of time and then dry. Other wise I am printing with dirty letters. Not much sense in that is there?

As with anything you buy with only part of the history as you go through it little pieces of its past come to your as you clean it up and polish it. Today I found these wonderful little treasures:

 Light bulb! (obviously done in the voice Gru, from Dispicable Me 2010)

 CONOCO

 Champlin USE Oils

 Mc Cormick-Deering Farm Machines and Implements

 John Deere

To give an idea of how big these little gems are (yes I am geeking out over them) Texaco and Philips 66 were there also. This fills out a small part of the printing presses history, part of the story I received was that this press was owned by a Colorado mining towns preacher and was used to print items for his sermons, town bulletins and Scrip for the company store. Brings back memories to some of the Mining Music.

Speaking of mines, I have been having an ongoing conversation with my spouse about the Diamond trade and frankly I don't understand how pressurized carbon is worth anything more than really expensive, pretty drill bits. The value is inflated from diamond traders, and sales. The idea of it being a heirloom is a sales campaign from the 70-80s. However she wants a Diamond in her setting. I offered a counter of getting a meteor ring instead, a truly rare item, but she says its not an option. I will have to figure it out at a later time.

Now for Monday's greeting card: Happy Birthday!

Front:

Happy Birthday, you are another year older!

Inside:

I promise this year I will try harder, so you don't have to deal with another.