Skip to main content

Story: Newspapers

Casting stereotype plate, 1957

Image
Casting stereotype plate, 1957

An alternative to producing the text of a newspaper in lines of lead type, with images added as blocks, was to produce an entire page of the paper as a single curved sheet of lead. This was called a stereotype plate. This platemaker is shown at work at the Evening Post plant in Wellington in 1957. Within 20 years this process, and all the equipment and skills associated with it, would be superseded by offset printing. 

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, Dominion Post Collection (PA-Group-00685)

Reference: EP/1957/2816-F

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Mark Derby, Newspapers – Competition and challenges, 1940–2000, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/43192/casting-stereotype-plate-1957 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Mark Derby, published 31 October 2013.