It’s hard not to gravitate towards some of the fine fish graphics on these antique and vintage printer’s blocks. With my love for fishing and some of the incredible old graphics used, it seems almost natural. I’ve spent many hundreds of hours fishing on the Pacific Ocean for Salmon, Rock and Ling Cod, Perch, Yellowtail, Albacore Tuna, Squid, Dungeness Crab, and other fun and tasty critters. Not even to mention the fresh water fishing we did on the entire West Coast. The locations we trout fished are countless but our favorite place for them has always been the McCloud River at the foot of Mt. Shasta. The native Dolly Varden is an extremely beautiful fish however we never consumed one of those. Catch and release only for those beauties. My wife and I have many hours under our belts fishing the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean from St. Petersburg Beach down to Key West. We lived on trout (by choice) when we traveled through and spent a few weeks in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

I’ve been lucky enough to fish Marlin and Dorado out of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and Sailfish out of Cancun. Catching a 280-pound Marlin on 30-pound test is quite a rush. The sailfish were just insane, jumping higher and faster than any fish I had ever encountered. Of course that’s not including the tarpon my wife hooked while fishing near Ft. DeSoto St. Park in Florida. A couple quick jumps and tearing off at high speed and he was gone. Or the five-foot barracuda she hooked off the 7-mile bridge in the Florida Keys. We were East Coast fishing virgins at that point and were not ready for anything like a tarpon or a barracuda. After those episodes, we spent our time on Red Drum (Redfish) and caught a good number. With that love of fishing and these great blocks, I thought I would share a few here.


New York Fish Market Print Block


This is an antique printer’s type block cast from solid foundry alloy metal. The graphic is an advertisement for the New York Fish Market, Quality Sea Food. I just love the large fish as the banner and the crab and oysters as other seafood products offered. The block measures 2 5/8” x 1 1/8”. We have other fish market or storage blocks that will be added at a later time, but this one is exceptional as an early representation of the fish market.


Fresh Redfish Meal Print Block

This one just brings back memories of the many gorgeous redfish we caught out of the Gulf of Mexico. Even with the number of redfish we caught, we never ate a one of them. We always enjoyed the catch and released them to swim off for another days catch. This early graphic depicts a freshly caught fish sitting on the rocks in front of a lighthouse. Early sailboats or schooners can be seen on the distant water. Although I don’t see a spot on the fish’s tail as a redfish would have, regardless of that it appears to be some sort of drum? After all, a redfish is nothing more than a red drum fish. There is a fisherman’s knife sitting beside the fish and a plate in the foreground. It’s an electrotype copper face mounted on hardwood block that measures 1 ½” x 1 3/16”

We’ll add some more great fish related blocks in a future post. Have to run now……….