Last summer, the city of Boston’s North Street municipal print shop was closed down. Now, the contents of the shop, which served the city for 78 years, are going up on the auction block. Andrew Ryan, writing for Boston.com, says:

[T]he linotype machines and letter presses will go on the auction block in late February along with artifacts from generations of producing permits and birth certificates.

Row after row of creaky oak drawers hold thousands of letters, both metal type and wooden blocks, from fine print to 72-point Tudor. A cigar box brims with square block stamps of the city seal. And there are metal etchings of a few of the city’s forefathers, presumably used years ago to print their faces on official documents.

The auction, coming up on February 24th, is open to the public. [Thanks, Alan Dove!]

More:

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• How offset printing ink is made
• Letterpress prints using dice as “type”
• Lost Knowledge: “Artistic printing”
• Printing press gets Tron-ified
• Letterpress process in pictures
• Block printing by hand