[thaumasiotes]

But the reference to "cheap printing presses" has to be interpreted as actually being a reference to type, as you have already done with your archive.org link. The press itself cannot either support or fail to support any graphical forms; there's no difference in the press whether you're using type or block printing.

Press quality issues are things like "are the surfaces flat" / "how much pressure can the press apply" / "how many pages can we press before running into a mechanical issue".

[eesmith]

I disagree. It does not have to be that. I pointed to a printing press designed for kids. That should be much cheaper than one used to print larger sizes or many copies, much less the quality of the Bible in the 1500s.

I do get your point, but I think it's still wrong to use "cheap" to refer to the typefaces available for the Caxton and KJV Bibles. I suspect they were quite expensive.

The physical press is only part of the printing cost. The Linotype typesetting machine made it possible to set an entire line of type, drawing from a 90 or so characters. While the press itself didn't care, adding new symbols required manual effort, making it more expensive.

[thaumasiotes]

> but I think it's still wrong to use "cheap" to refer to the typefaces available for the Caxton and KJV Bibles. I suspect they were quite expensive.

I don't think this argument quite works; something can be stunningly expensive, in an absolute sense, at the same time that it's the shoddy low-price option people choose for budget reasons.

[eesmith]

(Grrr! I've been saying Caxton Bible but I meant Tyndale Bible.)

Sure, it can be, but was it?

The KJV was very expensive as it was. ("Robert Barker invested very large sums in printing the new edition, and consequently ran into serious debt" says https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version .) That doesn't mean they used a shoddy low-price option.