Printing House

Preservation and heritage activities as well as research regarding letterpress printing are conducted.

In the 15 century, letterpress printing technology became established and it was long regarded as the mainstream form of character printing. Unfortunately, the technology is now starting to become lost. The Printing House is taking part in related conservation work, the passing down of the technology, and research. In addition, hands-on experiences of printing letters and Printing House tours are organized for the diffusion of letter printing.The Printing House exhibits machinery and introduces the Museum’s archive of European typeface specimens in timelines and so on.

See here for Printing House events

Introduction to printing machinery and equipment

  • Benton matrix and punch cutting machine
    Invented in 1885 by Linn Boyd Benton. It can carve a patrix and matrix using the principle of the pantograph.
  • Hand typecasting machine
    Invented in 1843 by David Bruce Jr. After repeated improvements it became manufactured in many countries and had been used until recently.
  • Stanhope press
    The world’s first iron printing press, proposed by Charles Stanhope around the year 1800.
  • Albion type press
    The original model was Invented in 1820 by Richard Whitaker Cope. It was subsequently manufactured by many printing machinery makers.
  • B-type hard ticket printing machine
    This printing machine was used to print train tickets (hard tickets) up until the introduction of the automatic turnstile.
    B-type hard tickets were primarily used in the greater metropolitan area.
  • Automatic relief printing proof press
    SA380
    Used in the clean proofing of typesetting, and proofing of metal-based photosensitive resin plates, and zinc and copper plates.

Introduction to other equipment

  • Typefaces

    The Museum has a collection of over 600 typefaces including those in outside storage. Japanese type: mincho, gothic, regular, textbook and antique; Western type: Gutenberg blackletter (replica), Garamond, Baskerville, Bodoni, Akzidenz Grotesk, Futura, Univers, PALACE SCRIPT, Clarendon etc.

  • Sample books

    The Museum has a collection of various sample books, used in research.

Printing House Gallery

In the Printing House it is possible to experience printing by actually touching and holding type, take a close look at the various tools used in printing and gain a real feeling of the 500 years of printing.

Using type on a dedicated letterpress printing experience work stand (a composing stand), visitors conduct the composing work.

Tightly lined up type. The type seen here in rows is part of the Museum’s collection.

Using the small worktop letterpress printing machine, the visitors’ letterpress printing experience is conducted.