The Type-&-Rule Caster

(Also the Lead, Slug-&-Rule Caster)

The Lanston Monotype Type-&-Rule Caster is a modified version of the Composition Caster, plus and minus certain equipment. With the right kit of parts you can convert a T&R Caster to a Composition Caster and vice versa.

The 1916 second edition of The Monotype System defines the "Type & Rule Caster" in its glossary in these terms:

"Type & Rule Caster. ... The casting mechanism of the standard Monotype ... plus the Lead and Rule Unit and the Display Type Unit... . Supplies all the material required by the hand compositor - type, borders, and high and low space material of any size from five- to thirty-six point; rules, high and low leads and slugs of any thickness from two- to twelve point. ... By applying the additional units the Type & Rule Caster can at any time be converted into the Standard Monotype for casting type in automatically justified lines."

(These two additional units (Display, Lead and Rule) both require the Speed Control Attachment to enable casting at the reduced speeds required for individual types and for rule.)

The earlier 1912 first edition of The Monotype System does not yet call it the "Type-&-Rule Caster," but rather "The Type Caster [Convertible]." By way of speculative research, I believe that the Display Type Attachment was introduced in 1903. However, this attachment did not yet allow the casting of rule. That had to wait until the introduction of fusion casting techology (patents filed in 1914 and issued in 1917). With the addition of the Lead and Rule Attachment, the "The Type Caster [Convertible]" became the "Type-&-Rule Caster."

Things get a little confusing in practice, because you can add the the Display Type Attachment and/or the Lead and Rule Attachment to a Composition Caster without removing its composition casting abilities. (Rich Hopkins, in Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype (p. 205), calls these "Combination Machines.) While there is a separate "adjustment book" for the Type-&-Rule Caster, the "plate book" for both machines is the same .

In American typecasting practice, the Type-&-Rule Caster is often colloquially referred to as an "Orphan Annie." The legend is that this term was derived from the "OA" prefix in these machines' serial numbers. However, Rich Hopkins (in Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype, p. 205) notes that he, at least, has never seen a machine with this serial number prefix. Neither has anyone else I've spoken to.

(Note: Because it casts single types for hand setting, I have placed typographical specimens for the Monotype Type-&-Rule Caster in the Foundry Specimens & Typography Notebook, at: Foundry Specimens & Typography.)

There are at least three references in the literature to a Lanston Monotype machine called a "Lead, Slug-&-Rule Caster." In at least two of these, the Type-&-Rule Caster is also mentioned, which would seem to indicate that the "Lead, Slug-&-Rule Caster" was a separate machine.

However, one of these references (the specimen of "Monotype Strip Rule Designs and Cornerpieces to Match") indicates that the LS&R Caster used the same matrices as the T&R Caster, not the same matrices as the Material Maker or Junior Material Maker. This in turn suggests that just as the T&R Caster was a variation of the basic Composition Caster (less composition equipment, plus speed control, display type, and rule equipment) so the LS&R Caster might have been a variation as well.

So I'm going to guess (and I must emphasize that I don't really know) that the LS&R Caster was basically a T&R Caster less the display type equipment.

Note also that in Lanston Monotype Machine Company terminology the term "slug" did not necessarily mean what it did elsewhere in printing. The glossary of the 1916 second edition of The Monotype System, for example, simply cross-references "Slug" to "Tie-Up Slug" (what would be known as tie-up rule elsewhere in the printing trade). So the "slug" in "Lead, Slug-&-Rule Caster" does not necessarily signify a finite-length slug in the style of a linecaster slug.

The recorded references to the LS&R Caster are:

1. The specimen booklet "Monotype Strip Rule Designs and Cornerpieces to Match".

2. A (presumed) advertisement in the 1928 Western edition of the Printing Trades Blue Book. At present, I know this only through a Google Books snippet which reads: "Monotype Will Meet the Requirements of ... Does not make type. Monotype Giant Caster - Casts type from 42 to 72 point; casts metal furniture of all standard sizes 18 to 72 point (high and low) in any desired length to 180 picas. Monotype Lead-Slug-&-Rule Caster - Casts leads, slugs, ..."

3. A trade note in Vol. 106 (1938) of American Printer (Google lists this as American Printer and Lithographer, but they had not yet changed to that name at this date). Again, I know this only through a Google Books snippet, which reads: "Strip Rule Designs and Cornerpieces to Matc[h,] Decorative Strip Borders, Material Making Machin[e,] Single-Column Dashes, Rules, and Braces, punched folders showing material available for casting on the Monotype Type & Rule Caster, the Lead, Slug & Rule Caster, and the Material Making Machine; also a folder of Monotype Matrix Information."

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