Metal letterpress comes in a number of types and looks.
Metal letterpress was the most popular form of printing for over 100 years. Used for books and newspapers alike, metal letterpress is still used by a number of different companies that want an old fashioned look and feel for their products. However, there are a number of factors that can affect metal letterpress, and what the final product looks like.
Press Type
There are two major types of metal letterpress; movable and non-movable press. Non-movable type is by far the older variety, where the text of a single page would be created and then used to print that single page. Wood blocks were more commonly used due to how easy they were to work with, and the relatively cheap cost of the material. Movable press means that you can put together a variety of letters and spaces to create a single page, and when that page is printed you can rearrange the letters to print a different page. This was much more commonly used with metal letterpress.
Font
Another factor for metal letterpress is the font of the letters being used in the press. If you look at the font list in a word processing program, many of those fonts were used in newspapers and books, including the Times New Roman and Arial fonts. Other changes to the font, such as bold letters or italicized letters, had to be made separately. It was common to pick a single letterpress font and to print the entire manuscript in that one font.
Metal
The type of metal used for letterpresses has varied slightly over the years. Lead was a common material due to how easy it was to shape, however it would also lose its shape if too much pressure was put on it. Steel is also a common metal, but it can corrode over time, especially if exposed to moisture for long periods. Copper was also used because it was easy to form but could take more pressure then lead, but it would also corrode over time if not carefully cleaned and cared for.
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