Monster Fish! and Other Specimens

Thursday, September 11, 2003

A few weeks ago I came upon a great little find at Annex Books.  Hidden in the art and design books was a little black hardcover book with a gold-foil stamping of a printing press on the cover.

It was a specimen book of printing types and ornaments from a printing office in Montreal (Lovell & Gibson, St. Nicholas Street) dating back to 1846.

There are some beautiful samples in the book.  Here’s a peek:

The City of Montreal
Monster Fish!
Public Auction

There are also a good number of old woodcuts and ornaments, such as this little fella:
Glug! Glug!


Comments

9-11-03 · 8:51 am

Ry says:

a monkey drinking a martini? that’s outlandish! that’s almost as crazy as, say, a new year’s baby with a cat head instead of a human head, holding a cigar and booze! not that anyone would ever design such an image, especially not on, say a temporary tattoo that one might find in a dollar store…
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9-11-03 · 9:15 am

Matt says:

Last November at the One of a Kind I almost bought a little framed print of that martini drinking monkey.

That’s right.  “One of a Kind”.  Judge me if you must.

9-11-03 · 10:19 am

Zombie Claire says:

MONSTER

FISH !

OH man I would love to have that framed on my wall!!!

9-12-03 · 12:45 pm

Robot Johnny says:

There are several pages in the book that are worthy of framing, that one in particular.

Another good one is the word “ME” in big thick block-letters filling the whole page.  Makes for a nice little narcissistic wallhanging.