Anyone know what this symbol might mean? Found in the myriad boxes of type and equipment we got: https://mastodon.social/media/i7-Gs8gBctfHW1hL8rk
@JohnPittman another proboscidean found it, Fransiscan friars: https://goo.gl/images/ARymNn
@schuyler Franciscans! That's a variant with the Tau cross. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franciscans
@schuyler I'm not even religious, haha. I knew none of that 10 mins ago, except a hunch it was from a religious order. I just really like sleuthing things. That was fun, thank you! 😊
@carly_io you are awesome!! Thank you so much :)
@schuyler I'm curious. Was this equipment of yours used by Franciscans? How old is it? 😮
@carly_io nope, likely the former owner just did a print job for some. Oldest machine was made in 1901 and has been running for all but a very few years since then. Most modern is the 60s, but some of the type, ornaments, and plates are only a decade old.
@schuyler Cooool, that makes sense. Wow that old machine has seen (and possibly printed about?) two world wars, man on the moon, and quite a few generations of change. Fascinating to think of the lives and stories of these objects around us. 😊
@carly_io I'm currently restoring a few of the presses, and I love seeing how they were kept running, and how they were originally designed. I feel like I'm holding tangible memory of someone else's life, and more than I would just looking at them. Fixing them up is like walking through a tiny moment in another life.
@carly_io here's my pet project, a Chandler and Price. In reality these are all my wife's, but I enjoy working on them, and this one was going to be scrapped before we came along. Can't help but root for an underdog :) https://mastodon.social/media/FenRF2DbsOQr1eN9LjY
@schuyler Oh wow. And I imagine most of the time you don't know much about the machine's history either. So you're tinkering away at restoring him? I'm guessing it's a piece-by-piece thing - a big job. Do you and your wife collect printing presses, or deal in printing antiques, or do you use them once they're in working order?
Or are you preparing to monopolise news in your area when the zombie attack happens and the power is cut off? :-P
@carly_io my wife bought out a letterpress shop and is in the process of starting her own small studio. I study the history of security technologies, which doesn't really intersect with printing, but I spend a lot of time with old mechanical things, so I'm enjoying scaling up my tinkering a bit https://mastodon.social/media/BjaVP23_Eujjea7i2ic
@schuyler :-D That's awesome!
@schuyler It looks like something to do with hands. Maybe it's how you're supposed to pick it up? Haha. I have no clue.
@astrofem looking like it might be related to Franciscan friars :)
@schuyler Oh, neat! Most likely! Their wiki has a similar symbol.
@schuyler V interesting - I googled 't with crossed hands' - nada.