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The Sale of King Show Print and The Estevan MercuryNegotiations began by letter and cable and finally on January 1, 1958, The Estevan Mercury and King Show Print became the property of the Liverpool company (The Daily Echo), operated under the name of The Estevan Mercury Limited. (Excerpt from Paper, Pen and Ink by Andrew King, Pg 189)
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Grandson Bob King describes Andrew King's last woodblock carving.22 September 2003
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In 1977, my grandfather was asked by a museum in San Diego, California, if he would be willing to come and carve a set of blocks for them.They had a set of blocks. These blocks came from the Hamilton Manufacturing Company in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. They were 26" x 40" x 1.25" . They happened to have three blocks.
Grandfather said yes he would come carve a set of blocks for them.
He had to go to the Musuem in Winnipeg to get his tools he used because he dontated them to the Museum of Man in Winnipeg. They graciously allowed him to take them to San Diego and at that paricular time he carved his famous tiger poster. They then used took the blocks he carved and made prints of them.
He refused to put King Show Print at the bottom as was common on every single one of their posters, because he said it was not the original.
The orginal was done in 1939 and this was done in 1977. Grandfather was 92 when he did this particular work for the San Diego Museum.
Bob King
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Andrew King carving the World's Finest Shows for the San Diego Museum1 January 1977
Estevan
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World's Finest Shows with Tiger Poster King Show Prints and Enterprise Show Prints1 January 1977
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Grandson Doug King discusses how Andrew King felt about the printing industry.23 December 2003
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I remember the last couple of years in the business, grandpa, the only time I saw grandpa frustrated, becuase grandpa was not that type of individual.I could see very clearly that he was frustrated about the change he could see in the printing industry and grandpa was into lino type, handsetting type, hot metal and wood blocks.
That was printing to grandpa.
And all of a sudden the offset was coming in with metal pipes. I remember grandpa looking at it and going, "Tsk tsk that's just not printing you know."
I could see his frustrations with that era coming in but I remember so vividly, my grandfather said to me," Ah, Doug, I cannot imagine what you will see in your lifetime. If you saw what I saw, - I cannot remember what he told me - power, telegraph, telephone, airplane and he would name all these things and he would say, "I just cannot imagine what you are going to see you in your lifetime, considering what I have seen in my lifetime, the automobile."
But the printing did bother him as it moved from hand set type and wood blocks, lithogrph.
It just irritated him, "That's not printing anymore."
Doug King
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Carnival Poster King Show Prints and Enterprise Show Prints1 January 1920
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It would not be truthful to state that I had no regrets over the sale of The Mercury and King Show Print. To relinquish any business in which a keen interest, effort and hard work have been invested is something that is not easily done without some feeling of loss.Of all types of business it would seem that the most difficult on to part with is that of a newspaper. There is a sentimentality about it all that cannot be ignored.
No other business enmeshes its staff and management as does a newspaper. No other business is so intimately personalized.
A newspaper - and particularly a weekly newspaper - is the final and visible concentration of individual thought, study, planning and technical art, centered around the assembled news of the community, together with its atmosphere, the whole transferred from mind to paper to create a personality of its own by mirroring the talent and the skill of all newspaper so different from the mechanically produced merchandise which fill the shelves of retail stores. (Excerpt from Paper, Pen and Ink by Andrew King, Pg 189-190)
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