Last Sunday, James Lileks (a Star Tribune columnist) tweeted that he had found a set of 25 advertising cuts at an antiques and ephemera show. The photo he posted was of a large mold of the type used to create stereotype plates for letterpress printing. I've seen at least one of these in person, as well as the metal plates made from them:
In response, Glenn Fleishman (technology journalist, editor, letterpress printer, and two-time Jeopardy! champion) responded that the objects are called flongs (and also mats or matrices), and that he has a Flickr gallery of other images and an amazing Medium post, full of images, about how the flongs were used and generally how stereotype printing was done.
Flongs are made of paper and for the most part, they were not kept because the process of creating plates damaged them. Stereotype plates were melted for reuse. So the fact that Lileks saw these 1954 flongs at an ephemera show is perfect.
I wish I could see these clip art flongs in person. Just checking this one out at this resolution turns up some fun things:
Lots of fall gardening bits there for bulbs and mums. Plus — You Can Afford Diamonds, Layaway Your Beautiful Silver Now!, No Extra Charge for Pillows n Blankets (what would that be for?), We Iron Everything, and — of course — Diaper Service.
Fleishman points out that the flongs that show up in auctions were generally ones with flaws, which explains why they're in perfect condition: they were never used. He goes on to say that ad and clip art flongs are more common than news flongs, though, because more of them were made that were never used.
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