When I wrote about the Lifestyle Craft letterpress combo kit the other day, dinah commented that it “looks to me like the ancient ‘cyclostyle’ thing schools used (50+ years ago) to print PTA notices.” I didn’t know what that was, but wikipedia says
The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool he used. In 1875 Thomas Edison received a patent for the “electric pen”, which a decade later became the basis for the mimeograph machine. Gestetner’s cyclostyle was similar and provided more automated, faster reproductions.
I also found a picture of the machine at the fascinating Early Office Museum website. Look here for the “exhibit” on early copying machines.
The exhibit and the cyclostyle brought back memories of my mom making duplicates at home of the choral music she wrote using a gelatin-based system. According to the museum, it was a “hektograph” or “spirit” duplicator.
Hi – found you by googling the new Letterpress L. Love the photo of the cycloscope! I don’t remember those, but I do remember mimeographs – the smell of the fluid, making the carbon-paper-like stencil, and the purple, oh the purple! What a great memory — too bad my kids won’t have that memory to associate with their school years!
I found this Gestetner Cycloscope in my basement – is there any change of finding a manual for this, I would like to use it. It seems all working fine. Thanks