{
  "id": "bb-1950-08-16-10",
  "title": "The directory masthead with its third letter turned round, August 1950",
  "publisher": "The Bend Bulletin, 1950-08-16, image 10; Historic Oregon Newspapers",
  "sourceClass": "primary",
  "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1950-08-16/ed-1/seq-10/",
  "accessedOn": "2026-09-14",
  "notes": "Two impressions of the emblem bracket the WHO’S WHO in BEND directory banner, and in both the third letter is mirrored - its diagonal running from the top right down to the left. The same masthead reads the ordinary way on 15 February 1950 and mirrored on 18 February, with no directory printed on the two days between, so the Bulletin replaced the block inside three days. The earliest drawing anywhere in this archive carrying the reversed N, and the one the Chamber of Commerce printed its 1953 full page from.",
  "record": "https://bendemblem.com/archive/bb-1950-08-16-10/",
  "evidence": {
    "id": "bb-1950-08-16-10",
    "kind": "variant",
    "date": "1950-08-16",
    "summary": "The Bulletin’s directory masthead after its block was replaced: the same letters as before with the third one turned round.",
    "findings": [
      "Page 10 of the Bend Bulletin of 16 August 1950 carries the “WHO’S WHO in BEND” directory, with an impression of the emblem at each end of its banner, about 146 px across on the native scan.",
      "The third letter is mirrored: its diagonal runs from the top right down to the left. Every drawing in this archive dated before 1950 runs it the other way.",
      "The same masthead reads the ordinary way on 15 February 1950 and mirrored on 18 February, with no directory printed on the two days between, so the block was replaced inside three days. A worn block does not reverse a diagonal; this is a different cut.",
      "The Chamber of Commerce’s full page of June 1953 carries the mirrored letter too, which is why that drawing is filed here rather than with the 1912 cut it resembles at a glance."
    ],
    "limitations": [
      "Not measured. The impression is inked until its counters have closed: declared light its mask is broken slivers, declared dark it becomes a near-solid disc that scores well against any broad drawing. Neither number is about the drawing, so it is read by eye.",
      "The window is three days. The banner falls from the top left on Wednesday 15 February 1950 and rises to the top right on Saturday the 18th, and the directory did not run on the two days between: every page of both issues was searched.",
      "Nothing here says who cut the replacement, or why a block was replaced with one carrying a reversed letter. That it was reversed deliberately, or by an engraver working from a reversed proof, is not evidenced either way."
    ],
    "objects": [
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        "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/images/iiif/batch_oru_20210901Foo12_ver01%2Fdata%2Fsn90051770%2F15021200026%2F1950081601%2F0084.jp2/136,2806,160,163/full/0/default.jpg",
        "accessedOn": "2026-09-14",
        "role": "Received source bytes — the device at native resolution."
      },
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        "sha256": "10d69e26bdeb92a32f81a908471185886349a0f3c022a51ba502193767295cc1",
        "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1950-08-16/ed-1/seq-10.pdf",
        "accessedOn": "2026-09-14",
        "role": "Received source bytes — the whole page."
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        "sha256": "f41aa4b43f65df3fa846272c0dbd1653fb3045e1ac6fbca890002286be310939",
        "url": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1950-08-16/ed-1/seq-10/",
        "accessedOn": "2026-09-14",
        "role": "Display render of the page, PyMuPDF at 144 dpi, JPEG quality 94."
      }
    ],
    "images": [
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        "original": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-directory-masthead/1950-08-16-seq10.pdf",
        "page": 1,
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        ],
        "title": "The directory banner, 16 August 1950, with the mirrored letter at each end.",
        "rights": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon; documentary reproduction, excluded from the project artwork license.",
        "color": true,
        "width": 1000,
        "render": "PyMuPDF at 144 dpi; JPEG quality 94; display crop recorded here.",
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        "from": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-directory-masthead/bb-1950-08-16-10-page-1.jpg"
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        "page": null,
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        ],
        "title": "The device at native resolution — the third letter mirrored.",
        "rights": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon; documentary reproduction, excluded from the project artwork license.",
        "color": true,
        "width": 900,
        "render": "Native-resolution IIIF region, 160×163, of the 4088×5269 page.",
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        "from": "archive/online-research/2026-09-14-directory-masthead/1950-08-16-seq10-device-native.jpg"
      }
    ],
    "family": "the-1950-recut",
    "origin": "The Bend Bulletin’s own masthead block for its business directory, replaced between 15 and 18 February 1950. Who cut the replacement is not documented here.",
    "sourceIds": [],
    "review": {
      "status": "image-reviewed",
      "method": "The page was opened at native resolution and the letter read by eye, against the same masthead in January 1950 and January 1951.",
      "reviewedOn": "2026-09-14"
    }
  },
  "measurement": [
    {
      "id": "bb-1950-08-16-10",
      "label": "The letter that turned round, 1950",
      "recordId": "bb-1950-08-16-10",
      "role": "specimen",
      "family": {
        "id": "the-1950-recut",
        "name": "The 1950 re-cut",
        "diagnostic": "The 1912 cut's broad letters and three-armed E with the third letter mirrored: its diagonal runs from the top right down to the left."
      },
      "standsAlone": false,
      "construction": "The angular construction",
      "confidence": "low",
      "readAt": 147,
      "readAtBasis": "",
      "metrics": [],
      "nearest": [],
      "furthest": null,
      "ties": [],
      "excludedReason": "The same masthead cut as 1939, printed so heavily that the counters have closed. Declared light, like every other impression of this device, its mask is broken slivers and scores 0.04 against the 1939 printing; declared dark it becomes a near-solid disc and scores 0.81 against the 1953 Chamber drawing - agreement earned by being a blob, not by being that drawing. Neither number is about the drawing, so it is read by eye and not measured.",
      "control": 0.975
    }
  ],
  "appearances": [],
  "appearanceLeads": [],
  "exhibit": {
    "id": "bb-1950-08-16-10",
    "title": "The letter that turned round, 1950",
    "intro": "In three days of February 1950 the Bulletin replaced its masthead block, and the new one has its third letter backwards.",
    "body": [
      "The Bend Bulletin ran a business directory headed “WHO’S WHO in BEND” from February 1939, with an impression of the emblem at each end of its banner. On 3 January 1950 those impressions read BEND. On 16 August 1950 they read BEND with the third letter mirrored - its diagonal running from the top right down to the left instead of the other way.",
      "A worn block does not reverse a diagonal. Ink spreads, counters close, corners round; none of that turns a letter round. Between those two dates the paper was printing from a different cut.",
      "It matters beyond the Bulletin. The Bend Chamber of Commerce bought a full page in the Bulletin’s Golden Jubilee edition in June 1953 and headed it with the emblem, and that drawing carries the mirrored letter too. For as long as this archive has held it, that page has been filed with the 1912 cut, which it does resemble at a glance. It was printed from the 1950 block.",
      "The reversal was found by eye, looking across the drawings at one size. The shape measurement had not caught it and could not have: a reversed diagonal moves very few pixels, and the score those drawings were being judged on is a whole-device one, dominated by the ring around them.",
      "What is not known is why. An engraver working from a reversed proof would produce exactly this, and so would one copying a photograph the wrong way round, and so would a deliberate choice nobody recorded. The window is three days. The banner of Wednesday 15 February 1950 still falls from the top left and the banner of Saturday the 18th rises to the top right, and the directory did not run on the 16th or the 17th — every page of both issues was searched. Eight impressions from December 1948 to February 1950 are filed with their addresses and hashes; each is an IIIF region of the provider’s own scan, because a render of the provider’s PDF reads this letter the wrong way round (guards rule 82)."
    ],
    "related": [
      "news-1953-06-16-18",
      "bb-1939-02-01-6",
      "bb-1912-07-03",
      "bb-1917-02-08-3"
    ],
    "date": "1950-08-16",
    "collection": "emblems",
    "publication": "The Bend Bulletin",
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        "width": 1000,
        "caption": "The directory banner, 16 August 1950, with a mirrored device at each end.",
        "alt": "A newspaper business directory banner reading “WHO’S WHO in BEND” with a circular BEND device at each end, the third letter of each reversed.",
        "credit": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon",
        "sourceUrl": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1950-08-16/ed-1/seq-10/",
        "color": true
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        "width": 900,
        "caption": "The device at native resolution — the third letter runs the wrong way.",
        "alt": "A circular BEND device, heavily inked, with the diagonal of its third letter running from the top right down to the left.",
        "credit": "The Bend Bulletin · Historic Oregon Newspapers, University of Oregon",
        "sourceUrl": "https://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn90051770/1950-08-16/ed-1/seq-10/",
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