November 3rd is National Cliché Day! While a cliché often refers to an overused phrase, clichés also refer to in letterpress printing as electrotypes. Clichés are copies of woodcuts and halftones. For today, Jared discusses how clichés (electrotypes) are made. The electrotype process was a way of reproducing woodcuts to be used multiple times in a publication or in separate publications. Jared also letterpress printed an electrotype of a cat with long whiskers that was published in an ad on this day in 1888 in the Sacramento Daily Record-Union and The Daily Bee (now known as the Sacramento Bee) newspapers. This was printed with black rubber base ink using our Washington hand press. This cat was used as the first ad for Lewis Winter’s photo and wood engraving business at 627 J Street. This makes it one of the oldest cuts in the Lewis Winter Collection, made at least 136 years ago. The newspaper ad gives some explanation as to why some of the Lewis Winter Collection contains some rathe...