A short “Hello”, if I may

Greetings, Everyone,

I just stumbled upon this site, and already I love it! Briar Press postings led me here, while I was trying to decide if I  have enough room for a Little Giant. (No, I don’t.)

I’ve been in printing for over 45 years, offset and letterpress, and have found that the letterpress was always much more engaging. I’ve owned large offset (20×26 2-color) as well as small, and made a good living from them, but the Kluge and Craftsman Automatics, the C&P Snappers, as well as the small cylinders–V-36 and Kelly “B”–are what really made me love to go to work in the morning. At one point we had three Linotypes running, and I was happily engaged in a lot of type-setting. Other times the focal point was a Windmill set up for foil stamping. My next project, should I be foolish enough to undertake it, will probably be the building of a Franklin hand-press.

As I looked around for letterpresses, I realized that it was the perfect time—a good C&P four-form roller Craftsman with the C&P feeder cost me $100.00! A 12×18 Kluge Automatic was under $1000.00, and I traded a table-top C&P platen for a working and complete Kelly “B”!!

Of course, they would be more costly now, but I lost my husband a little over a year ago, and I’m thinking that it would be good therapy and a good use of available space in the shed if I could find a nice platen and a Model 14 Lino. I guess I’ll have to see how the motorcycles feel about sharing.  Anyway, that’s why I’m here. It looks lovely, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it!

Thank you so much for joining! Sounds like you have the making of an excellent letterpress shop. 🙂

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