Considerations Involved in Fixing the Unit
Price
Even though "standard" faces — English, Pica and Small Pica
—
were charged at a standard rate set in the scale of prices, it remained the
work of the Master or the Overseer to cast-off copy in such a way that he
not only conformed to the scale but also allowed a profit margin to take
care of the nature and condition of the copy: the number of "hard words,"
the complexity of the syntax, the handwriting of the copy. It is the state of
the copy which forces a modification of any scale of prices when unusual
work comes into the house and which makes customers today as well as in
the eighteenth century willing to accept a higher scale-rate rather than incur
"extra" charges because their copy is "dirty." Strahan's scale had to include
enough profits after wages to cover the variables which could not be
charged "extra" in the ordinary run of business. He was successful in
making his scale sufficient to cover most occasions, for the ledgers show
only fourteen instances out of 996
entries in which "extra" charges were made for original
composition. Of these fourteen, ten were divided among five publications:
one short-lived periodical, the East India Miscellany (three
instances), and three works in which Strahan was a partner and could
therefore charge "extra" for "dirty copy" without worrying about a
customer's reaction, Isaac Ware's Architecture (two
instances),
Sir John Hill's Herbal (two instances), and a Naval
History (three instances). It is
safe to say that Strahan consistently and constantly applied the scale to all
except a negligible number of jobs.
As can be seen from the scale of unit prices, Strahan's customers
were always charged at a higher rate for "mixed" sheets. To judge from the
entries for these sheets, two type faces could be mixed in one sheet up to
a fixed maximum without a higher charge, but beyond the maximum a
higher scale began which increased as the proportion of mixture increased.
Mixtures of two languages resulted in a higher rate immediately, but sheets
entirely in Latin did not necessarily have a higher rate. All languages which
used an alphabet other than the Roman (thus necessitating a different type
font whereas Latin did not) were, however, charged at a much higher rate.
When Strahan did not have the alphabet of a particular type face on hand,
he ordered the casting of fonts or sorts and charged the customer a
separate, "extra" fee for the casting as well as the higher rate for unfamiliar
setting.
Charges for half sheets were always one-half of the charge for full
sheets (I could find only one exception); but when the casting-off showed
that a quarter sheet would be needed (e.g., in a job of 10¾ or 5¼
sheets), Strahan followed one of three practices. Usually, he charged the
price for the exact one-quarter or three-quarter sheet, presumably absorbing
the cost of the extra work in his profit margin. Occasionally, he charged for
the next higher half sheet; since a quarter sheet, especially three-quarters,
is actually an unprintable unit except in unusual circumstances, this practice
was a perfectly proper business charge. It can be inferred that in these
instances Strahan was unwilling to absorb the extra cost of finding a small
press free and cutting paper to fit it; instead, he made an additional charge
to the customer, which may or may not have covered the cost to Strahan.
Rarely (in two instances) Strahan charged a rate between the
cost of the quarter
sheet and the cost of the next higher half sheet. Unless these two instances
are mistakes in arithmetic (which is extremely rare in the ledgers), it can
be inferred that these two customers were given a slight preferment in price
but not the lowest cost, presumably because they should have avoided the
extra quarter sheet.
