Here is a list of all pantographs for which I am aware of evidence in the literature that they have been used in cutting patrices, punches, or matrices.
The list here is arranged alphabetically, not chronologically or in order of importance.
| Machine | Used By |
| Ballou | Barnhart Brothers & Spindler [BL] |
| Barr, Punch Engraving Pantograph | The Linotype Company Ltd., UK; later Linotype & Machinery Ltd. [BR] |
| Benton, 1885-patent Patrix/Punch Engraver | several typefoundries and matrix makers, including ATF, the US and UK Linotype firms, Lanston Monotype (US), and the then-US Rogers Typograph firm. |
| Benton, 1899-patent Matrix Engraver | ATF, Government of Japan |
| Benton, "Ad-cut" machine | ATF |
| Central Type Foundry Pantograph | Central Type Foundry |
| Dedrick | Barnhart Brothers & Spindler. Peignot Foundry (France) |
| Engravers' & Printers' Machinery Co. | Goudy |
| Gorton 1-A Matrix Engraving Machine | Sold commercially |
| Gorton 3-K Precision Matrix Machine | Sold commercially |
| Grant-Legros | [unknown] |
| Inland | Inland Type Foundry. Genzsch & Heyse (Germany) |
| Michael Kampf | Offizin Parnassia. |
| Lewis (three machines) | Keystone Type Foundry |
| Ludlow (Wiebking-derived) | Ludlow Typograph Company. Paul Hayden Duensing. Jim Rimmer. |
| Ogata RS-260 | Jim Rimmer |
| Pierpont | The Monotype Corp. Ltd. (UK) |
| Preis | Paul Hayden Duensing [PHD-PA] |
| Schokmiller | Stephenson, Blake |
| Schroeder-Boyer | Schroeder & Werner (commercial matrix engravers) |
| Wiebking-Hardinge | Wiebking, Hardinge & Co. Advance Type Foundry |
| (unknown machines) | Mergenthaler Linotype Company, post-Benton |
| (unknown machines) | Stempel |
[TO DO: Go through Wilkes and try to identify machines at least by type; produce at least a list of mutually distinct unknowns.]
Gorton also made their model 1-G Matrix Engraving Machine and its successor, the 3-G. These machines were adapted for work on curved surfaces, so while they were otherwise suited for matix and punch work, they were intended primarily for lettering on dies.
Rehak mentions machine called the "Gem" and the "Little Pioneer" in Practical Typecasting (p. 100). I have been able to discover nothing further about any such machines. He says that Goudy used a "Little Pioneer," but Goudy in fact used an Engravers' and Printers' Machinery Company pantograph.
Rehak mentions a "Deckel-Kampf" engraver in Practical Typecasting (p. 100). I am unaware of any connection between Maschinenfabrik Michael Kampf KG of Bad Homburg and the Friedrich Deckel company either independently or as amalgamated into other companies.
(Photograph from Typographical Printing Surfaces (1916) , p. 236 and Fig. 211 of Plate XII.)
Circa 1895. By George F. Ballou. No patent known to me. Used by Barnhart Brothers & Spindler in Chicago.
See the CircuitousRoot Notebooks on the Ballou Pantograph
By Mark Barr for the Linotype Company, UK (before they became Linotype & Machinery in 1903).
See the CircuitousRoot Notebooks on the Barr, for Punches
(From De Vinne, Theodore Low. The Practice of Typography. (NY: The Century Company, 1900.) p. 351. Digitized by Google from the Harvard University copy.)
The origins of this machine, famous as it is, are uncertain. It would seem most likely that it was developed first to cut patrices for electroforming matrices, probably around 1883. By July 1884, Benton, Waldo & Co. had announced in The Inland Printer that they had a machine to cut punches in steel. (This was several years before any possible Linotype involvement; Henry Lewis Bullen's story in this regard is false.) See the CircuitousRoot Notebooks on the patrix-cutting version and the punch-cutting version. The differences between these two versions are likely to have been slight - perhaps just different cutters.
This is the machine described in Benton's US patent 332,990 of 1885. That patent is slightly more general than any illustration of a machine as built that I've seen. However, when constructed in its preferred form with a stationary cutting head facing upward and a moving workholder above it (holding a patrix or punch blank facing downward) the machine uses a relief right-reading pattern to produce a (relief) wrong-reading patrix or punch.
Some records of the customer base for this machine survive at The Dale Guild, but only excerpts of these have been published (in Rehak's Practical Typecasting, pp. 107-109. Some information was also published in a Benton, Waldo & Co. brochure of about 1891. See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on the punch-cutting version of the machine for a summary of this. Customers included the Mergenthaler Printing Company (which became the Mergenthaler Linotype Company), the Linotype Company Ltd. (UK), Lanston Monotype (US), the Rogers Typograph Co. (US at that time), and several matrix makers. (The Mergenthaler company took delivery of their first machine in 1889, some five years after Benton, Waldo announced its ability to cut punches in steel.)
From the 1923 ATF Specimen Book and Catalog (Jersey City, NJ: American Type Founders Company, 1923). The linked image is a 1200dpi greyscale PNG scan from the orginal.)
In its preferred form, this machine is a kinematic inversion of Benton's 1885-patent patrix/punch engraving machine. In that machine, the cutting spindle (quill) was mounted below the workpiece, facing up. The pantograph mechanism moved the workpiece and the quill remained in one location. It used a right-reading relief pattern to cut a wrong-reading punch or patrix. In the 1899 matrix-engraving revision, the quill was mounted above the workpiece, facing down. The pantograph mechanism moved the quill and the workpiece remained stationary. It used a right-reading relief pattern to cut a right-reading intaglio matrix.
This is the machine described in Benton's US patent 809,548, which wasn't issued until 1906, but which was filed on 1899-02-17.
See the CircuitousRoot Notebooks on the matrix-cutting version of Benton's vertical pantograph
The customer base for the Benton matrix engraver is even less well known that that of his patrix/punch engraver. ATF used the machines, obviously. Rehak recounts the sale of two machines to "the Japanese government (or a government contractor)" in 1920. Other than that, I just don't know.
This machine survives at The Dale Guild. It is mentioned in Rehak's Practical Typecsting, pp. 107-108. He says of it that it was/is used to produce very large matrices.
This machine has the distinction of being the first pantograph to produce matrices in the US (and as a direct matrix engraving machine, at that). It was built in Germany and imported in 1880 by the Cincinnati Type Foundry, but not used successfully there. It was acquired by the Central Type Foundry and used to cut matrices in 1882.
It was later purchased by Gustav F. Schroeder and used by him to cut DeVinne for Central under contract. Schroeder and Werner later used this machine in their partnership, and one of them probably continued using it after that.
Much misinterpretion and misinformation surrounds this machine in early accounts, as ATF's marketing was much better than Central's.
Nothing is know of the technical aspects of this machine, save that it was a horizontal-format pantograph.
See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on the Central Type Foundry Machine
Designed by Nicholas Dedrick, at Barnhart Brothers & Spindler. Used there in "1896 or 1897." One sold to Peignot Foundry (France) in 1901. (See Eckman, James. "The Great Western Type Foundry of Barnhart Brothers and Spindler, 1869-1933." Printing and Graphic Arts. Vol. 9 (1961) , p. 16.) It is mentioned in Legros & Grant's Typographical Printing Surfaces (1916) , p. 236, but it is not illustrated or described (other than to say that it was configured to engrave four matrices simultaneously).
See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on the Dedrick Pantograph.
(From American Machinist. Vol. 51, No. 1 (July 3, 1919): 41. ("Shop Equipment News" column))
Made by the Engravers' and Printers' Machinery Co. of New York (later of Sag Harbor, NY) after three patents issued in 1912 to William W. Eaton. These were vertical pantographs with a distinctive mechanism for mounting the table on three large balls. It was made in at least two models, a drag engraving Model C and a rotary engraving Model D. Eaton's background was in watch-case engraving, and he had been involved in the making of various pantographs over a long period. The E&PM Co. machines were intended for commercial engraving work of both end products and printers' plates.
This is the machine Goudy used for matrix engraving. He had two at "Deepdene" prior to the 1939 fire. He acquired a third, via Syracuse University, after the fire. (He also used this ex-Syracuse machine for working pattern engraving before acquiring an industrial pantograph for that purpose in 1943, but found that this adaptation was difficult.) Goudy had his machines modified in some way, but the nature of these modifications is not certain.
See the CircuitousRoot Notebook on the Eaton and Related Pantographs.
This consisted of the application of the Gorton Tool No. 237-1 Matrix Cutter Head (that is, a removable spindle) to the standard Gorton No. 1-A Engraving Machine. This application, however, could only be done at the factory; Gorton would not supply the Tool No. 237-1 for customer installation on existing No. 1-A Engraving Machines.
The Tool No. 237-1 Matrix Cutter Head was intended to be used in conjunction with the Gorton Tool No. 334-1, a cutter grinder head for the Gorton 265 Cutter Grinder to hold the 237-1 Matrix Cutter Head.
See the Gorton Matrix Engraving Machines section of the CircuitousRoot Gorton Pantograph Notebooks.
See also Gorton Form 933, Gorton Patent Engraving Machines (Racine, WI: George Gorton Machine Co., 1925). This is online on www.gorton-machine.org:8080/forms/index.html
(Photograph from Gorton Pantograph Instruction Book and Parts Catalog, Form 1385. (Racine, WI: Goerge Gorton Machine Co., 1935). Scanned by DMM.)
See the Gorton Matrix Engraving Machines section of the CircuitousRoot Gorton Pantograph Notebooks.
See also Gorton form 1385, in various editions. The original version (1935), and revisions A (1938), B (1940), C (1942), D (1945), and F of this manual are online at http://www.gorton-machine.org:8080/forms/index.html. Additionally, I have digitized my own copy of the original version of this manual and put it online at The Internet Archive.
For samples of its work, see Gorton Form 1370 / 1370a, Samples of Work (1935 / 1937). This is online at www.gorton-machine.org:8080/forms/index.html
Sold commercially. The 1-G was intended more for raised and relief lettering in fine die work rather than for typographical matrix making as a typefoundry would understand the term.
This consisted of the application of the Gorton Tool No. 236-1 Matrix Cutter Head (that is, a removable spindle) to the standard Gorton No. 1-G Engraving Machine (similar to the 1-A, but adapted to work "on concave, convex, and spherical surfaces generally." This application, however, could only be done at the factory; Gorton would not supply the Tool No. 236-1 for customer installation on existing No. 1-G Engraving Machines.
The Tool No. 236-1 Matrix Cutter Head was intended to be used in conjunction with the Gorton Tool No. 267-1, a cutter grinder head for the Gorton 265 Cutter Grinder to hold the 236-1 Matrix Cutter Head.
See the Gorton Matrix Engraving Machines section of the CircuitousRoot Gorton Pantograph Notebooks.
See also Gorton Form 933, Gorton Patent Engraving Machines (Racine, WI: George Gorton Machine Co., 1925). This is online on www.gorton-machine.org:8080/forms/index.html
Sold commercially. This was the successor to the 1-G, and like it was adapted to work on curved surface.
I haven't actually found a Gorton publication which shows this machine. It is mentioned, though, in Gorton Form 1243, "Domestic Price List" effective November 1, 1930 (or 1243b, Aug. 1, 1932). This is online on www.gorton-machine.org:8080/forms/index.html
Whehter Kampf machines count as "native" matrix engraving machines or not is largely a matter of definition. They're such high-end die sinking machines (for, e.g., coining) and they are of a form so closely associated with many decades of matrix engraving [k], that I cannot imagine that matrix engraving wasn't in their designers' minds. It is just another application for them.
BL. See Legros & Grant. Typographical Printing Surfaces. (1916) : p. 236 and Fig. 211 on Plate XII.
BR. See Legros & Grant Typographical Printing Surfaces. (1916): p. 204, Fig. 159 on Plate V facing p. 204, and Fig. 160 on Plate VI facing Plate V. See GB patent No. 22,106 of 1900 (GB 190022106 A).
k. At least in Germany. See Wilkes' Das Schriftgießen , the two editions of Bauer's Wie eine Buchdruckschrift entsteht , and Mahr's Der Druckbuchstabe: Sein Werdegang in der Schriftgießerei dargestellt in Holzschnitten und Versen . Indeed, the machines shown in Wilkes, Bauer, and elsewhere may be Kampf machines; I'm not sure.
PHD-PA. Duensing, Paul Hayden. "Private Typefounding in the U.S.A." in The Printing Art, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer 1973): 16-30. On p. 25, he reprints a manufacturer's photograph of a Preis and captions it thus: "A small bench-type pantograph engraver made by Preis Machine Co. in New Jersey. It is well suited to the private founder's needs and is surprisingly accurate."
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