I found this beautiful ad for an A. B. Dick Mimeograph duplicator while looking for something else:
[Life, July 22, 1940. Click for a larger view.]
I found this beautiful ad for an A. B. Dick Mimeograph duplicator while looking for something else:
I found this beautiful ad for an A. B. Dick Mimeograph duplicator while looking for something else:
See how clean and sharp those copies look? You can barely distinguish them from the original sentence. That’s because I made them with my A. B. Dick Mimeograph duplicator.
The business model put forth in this advertisement would be welcome today: “Honest salesmen, selling honest quality in honest products, made in honest factories, marked at honest prices.” No junk: “One chair that lasts is worth a whole suite that peels and cracks and falls apart.” Yes. “The real economy of the superior,” not “the extravagance of the inferior.” I think about these matters every time I have to buy a tool or household item. It’s cheaper in the long run to buy what will last.
What better way to sell a duplicating machine than with a crisp line drawing of a duplicating machine? Look: the machine and the picture are being wheeled into your workplace as I type:
[You’re almost there, fellows. Push! Push hard!]
If, like me, you fondly recall the fragrant purple ink of schooldays, you’re thinking of the products of the spirit duplicator, not the mimeograph. The two-ply page used with a spirit duplicator was called a “spirit master.” What a strange and wonderful name.
[That dress- or keyhole-like shape in the bottom left corner? I have no idea.]
Monday, July 8, 2013
Mimeograph duplicator
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comments: 4
Thanks for this post, Michael. It made me all nostalgic. Do you remember when I sprayed mimeograph ink all over the English department? It was my job to refill the mimeograph's toner. The ink came in big toothpaste-like tubes that screwed to the main drum, and I'd screwed on a tube but the drum was unstable, so I went to set the brake. But I hit the on/off switch instead, and so the tube spun around on the drum, broke at its neck, and got sucked under the drum. The result was similar to what you might get if you stomp on a fast-food packet of ketchup. The ink sprayed almost everywhere, but it miraculously missed the new copy machine that had just been purchased to replace the mimeograph. (I think the carpet was new too.) If you see Denise Clark, you might ask if she remembers. I was so upset that she bought me a six-pack of beer and gave me a poem that I've never been able to find but that began something like: "My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases."
“Do you remember when I sprayed mimeograph ink all over the English department?”
Oh gosh — now I do. Here, have a beer on me.
The poem is by John Frederick Nims. Here it is, via Google Books: “Love Poem.”
Among all the things I have to thank you for, finding me "Love Poem" ranks way up there. I've searched for it any number of times but without success. Until now. What a splendid and unpredictable chain of events began (for me at least) with this post. Thanks, MIchael.
You’re welcome, Stefan. Thanks to our Google overlords too.
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