Toronto Type Foundry

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1. Overview

By 1890 through at least 1967/1968. Toronto, Montreal, Winnipeg, Regina.

Right now all I have are scattered references attesting this foundry:

Mentioned in the Business Directory section of The Inland Printer Vol. 7, No. 6 (September, 1890): 1077.

A web page on Winnipeg building history at http://www.virtual.heritagewinnipeg.com/vignettes/vignettes_246.htm# is devoted to the Toronto Type Foundry Building in Winnipeg. It says the building was built circa 1881-1882, and that "In 1898, the Toronto Type Foundry, an eastern firm which had established its Winnipeg branch five years earlier, purchased the warehouse to be closer to the centre of the city's printing trade."

Another webpage on this Winnipeg building, at http://www.winnipeg.ca/ppd/historic/pdf-consv/McDermot=20175-long.pdf notes that the Toronto Type Foundry purchased the building in 1898 and retained it for 70 years. This means that the foundry must have survived until at least 1968. This page/essay discusses the operations of the Toronto Type Foundry at this Winnipeg location, but does not suggest that type was cast at it.

But the Howard Graphics site ( http://www.howardgraphic.com/pages/legacy.html gives 1967 as its date of closure (and the date at which their founder, formerly a pressman at the Toronto Type Foundry, started their firm)

Luc Devroye cites and illustrates an 1897 catalogue of wood type sold by this foundry: http://cg.scs.carleton.ca/~luc/toronto/index.html

The American Type Founders Company 1903 Specimens of Borders and Ornaments, Cuts and Brass Rules and Illustrated Catalogue and Price List of Printing Material and Printers' Supplies lists the Toronto Type Foundry as an ATF selling agent.

The Inland Printer. Vol. 69, No. 2 (May, 1922): 169 carries an ad by the Hill-Curtis Company for their Trim-O-Saw which notes "Exclusive Selling Agents for Canada / Toronto Type Foundry Company / Toronto - Montreal - Winnipeg - Regina."

Patent searching indicates that the Toronto Type Foundry was the assignee of a number of British patents generally in the 1920s for sheet feeding and folding machines.

Vol. 23, No. 1 (March, 1975) of Craftsman, a house organ of the Canadian printing supply firm Sears Ltd., carries a story on the origins of that firm in 1925 when its three founders simultaneously resigned from the Toronto Type Foundry. The story, "The Way We Were..." is by Tom H. Sears, in 1975 the Vice-Chairman of the firm. In it he notes that the firm was founded by his grandfather Thomas H. Sears (formerly a salesman covering Southwestern Ontario for the TTF), his father William H. Sears (formerly General Manager of the TTF, in Toronto), and his uncle Frank H. Sears (formerly Montreal Branch Manager for the TTF).

I have a copy of Intertype Faces: Condensed Book No. 1, undated but probably before 1943, which has been stamped "Toronto Type Foundry Co., Ltd. / Winnipeg, Canada / Selling Agents".

A 1960s vintage (Harris-Intertype era, but using city zone codes for the Brooklyn addresss) Intertype publications, Model C: Intertype's Universal Hi-Speed Linecasting Machine lists the Toronto Type Foundry as Intertype's Canadian agency.

So they clearly sold presses and materials, and themselves engaged in printing - but I haven't yet discovered any solid evidence that they did, indeed, cast type.


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