Your ad-plate is locked into the form with the other matter composing the page. A hurried lock-up, and the form is molded into a mat and stereotyped. Fast presses and cheap ink do the rest.

If your ad does not show up well in the first few impressions run off, the press grinds on just the same, with little or no make-ready. Once they start, it is too late to stop to allow the press-room foreman to investigate why a certain ad does not print up well. The “Daily Bugle” must get on the streets, if possible, before its competitors with the important scoop that the Beghum of Swat has just died. If you have supplied the best material for the newspapers to work with, the clean-cut reproduction of your advertisement is insured. If you have been penny-wise and pound-foolish in saving a few cents on your ad-plate, all the dollars you spent on art, typography and white space for your ad are on the knees of the gods and liable to be spilled off the said knees, and your ad is messy looking when it appears. The advertiser invariably blames the newspaper and the newspaper passes the buck on to the plate-maker. The printed appearance of the ad is largely determined by the kind of plate furnished to the newspaper.

The large daily newspapers are entirely dependent upon the stereotyping process for the necessary speed required in production. They do not print directly from type or cuts. The big advantage of stereotyping in this connection lies in the fact that it is the quickest method of producing a solid, duplicate printing plate from an original molding form. After locking up a page form, it can be molded, the matrix dried and the plate cast and ready for the press in about ten minutes.

Therefore, only unmounted plates should be sent to the large daily papers and not wood mounted, as it takes too long for the heat to pass through the wood base in drying the mat.

The unmounted plate is placed on a metal base, (because heat passes through metal quickly in drying the mat) and then locked in the form with the type and other matter composing the entire page. A mat is then molded from the complete form and a curved stereotype is cast from this page mat. It is from this curved full page stereotype that the large daily newspaper is actually printed.

Since they must duplicate the plates sent to them by the stereotyping process, your expensively prepared advertisement, if it is to appear sharp and clean in the valuable space it uses, should be electrotyped by your plate-maker. A stereotype duplicated from an electrotype will print cleaner than a stereotype duplicated from a stereotype by reason of the fact that mats molded by the newspaper from electrotypes are sharper and deeper than when they are molded from stereotypes.

Electrotypes have a distinctly sharper and harder face and are deeper than stereotypes. The very nature of the process and materials used in their manufacture makes this superiority inevitable. Wax is used as the plastic medium in which to mold electrotypes, whereas for stereotypes paper is used. Sharpness and depth cannot be molded into paper as it can into wax.

Neither will stereotype metal poured by gravity against a paper matrix mold be as sharp and deep as copper deposited electrolytically on a wax mold.

It follows, therefore, that when an unmounted electrotype is supplied to the “Chicago Tribune” or the “New York Journal” or the “San Francisco Call” they are stereotyping your ad in the page form from a plate molded in wax directly from the original.

On the other hand, when you supply a stereotype of your ad to the large dailies this stereotype is already one step removed from the original master plate and means that two paper mats intervene between the original supplied to the plate-maker and the final stereotype of the page containing your advertisement. In short, they are duplicating a stereotype from a stereotype and each duplication means a loss in sharpness and depth; therefore they should be supplied with a sharp electrotype from which to make their final page mat.

Obviously when a stereotype is supplied to the large dailies they are working from a plate that is neither sharp nor deep to start with, as would be the case if you sent them an electrotype from which to work. An electrotype is economy in the end and will save you grief, when the cost of space is considered. Should you desire economy, order your plate-maker to send mats—copy considered—to the large dailies. A mat is less expensive than a stereotype and will reproduce your advertisement equally as well.

When you send them a mat instead of an electro there is one more duplication for the newspapers to make in producing the final stereotype from which they print, but the mat which your plate-maker furnishes them is at least molded directly from the original plate, so that it is sharper and deeper than the mat the newspapers have to make when you furnish them a stereotype from which to work. When you furnish the large dailies with the mat they cast a flat stereotype first, which is locked up in the form with the other matter composing the page. This entire form is then molded into a mat and stereotyped.

The small dailies and country newspapers print directly from type and cuts. They use a flat-bed press. For this reason it is necessary that the advertising-plate or dealers cut which you furnish to them should be mounted type-high.

The best plate you can furnish them is none too good; their make-ready and the general handling of their material is not of the highest order in efficiency as compared to the large dailies, and it is entirely probable that even with a good sharp electrotype, your advertisement may not show to advantage. With a stereotype, the liability of smudgy printing is greatly enhanced.

The Rapid Electrotype Company knows the mechanical equipment of the different newspapers throughout the United States. It sends mounted plates to those papers that print directly from type and cuts, and unmounted plates to those that stereotype their forms. This detail is left entirely to their discretion. The names of the towns to which your advertisement or dealers-cut is to be shipped is all the information they require in order to determine whether or not to ship mounted or unmounted plates.