Newspaper Template

Q: I read your column in the Hartford Courant every week and thought maybe you could help. I have a template for one page of the Meridan Record Journal from August 21st 1958. It’s about 22 inches by 17 inches. I wasn’t sure what it was so I contacted the paper to see if someone there could shed some light on it. We talked to a man who’d worked there for over 50 years and he said it was a template used in the process of “Hot Metal Printing.” I think it’s made of a type of papier-mache. Any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Even if it doesn’t have much value, it’s a great conversation piece in the frame hanging up.

A: This papier-mache template is called a “flong.” They were used in hot metal printing from the late 1800s until about 1949, when phototypesetting became more common. Digital printing has been done since about 1991. Newspapers used the flong to make a negative mold of an entire page of type. Then it was pressed onto a metal stereotype plate, the plate was attached to a rotating drum, and the pages were printed on a long reel of paper. The flongs were often destroyed in the process. Those not used were destroyed or thrown out. It looks like your flong is a page from the comics section. There isn’t a lot of interest in collecting these templates. Value depends on how interesting the page is.