[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.