About 1977-78, I left the Commercial Print at Taranaki Newspapers, (New Plymouth, NZ) after having completed my apprenticeship, and a few years. The first machine "they" gave me to work on, probably after my first year slaving as everything but a Linotype operator, was an old Model 8 that had a buckled mold wheel, but had a Mohr saw. Later, I was promoted to one of the two model 31's we had. Luxury. Thinking that I had my share of hot metal, I moved on to another company in New Plymouth, but went there initially as a storeman, cutting paper pre-press, finishing, but on occasions, using their Intertype.
The Intertype ran especially well and over the seven years I was with that firm, I cannot recall a problem that required outside help to fix, such was the reliability of the machine. When I left Masterprint, I lost touch with many of the staff and what become of that machine. Now I am wrestling with trying to figure out what model it was. This is where some of the readers can help? It had a star base and had side magazines, but unlike the SM's of Linotypes or later Intertypes I have seen, there were three side magazines on this older machine, arranged in a triangle - one sitting over the reeds and the other two forming the apex of the triangle above. It had three main magazines and had the leap-frog, winding mag change. Also, it was a "back loader". Age-wise, I would have guessed the machine to possibly have been manufactured in the 1930's, but that is a guess.
Can anyone tell me what model this machine was? Perhaps someone has a photo they might like to share?
