"The most popular booth at the Festival"

And it sure felt like it!

Lettepress Depot printers had a great time meeting our Englewood neighbors at the Englewood Spring Festival — and showing off our fire engine red Adana presses.

Come print with us next at Celebrate Englewood, May 6 at Civic Center.

It's Greek to me...

Board member Marc Silberman got to show off his new Greek font when Letterpress Depot printed at Cherry Creek High School recently.

It was all part of the school’s Fine Art Fridays, which the Depot loves to print at.

Come see our next printing demonstration at Englewood’s Spring Festival. All are welcome.

For more information or to volunteer at any printing demos, email englewooddepot@gmail.com

or call/text 720-48-5358.

"New" old presses get their debut

It was a colorful night at Cherrelyn Elementary in Englewood when the Letterpress Depot showed off three of its newly acquired historic Adana presses.  With the advantage of multiple presses owned by the nonprofit and by board members, it was possible to print one color on each press - blue, yellow and black - resulting in a multi-colored (letterpress style) image of the city’s famed  Cherrelyn Trolley.  The trolley, which ran from 1894-1910, was horse-drawn up a one mile hill.  At the top, the horse boarded the trolley for the gravity-propelled trip downhill!

By combining arts and technology, the printing demo was a great way to celebrate the Schools STEAM night – the study of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math.  Board members from the Depot printed last year at Cherrelyn and Bishop Elementary and at the Charles Hay World School.  Their next printing demonstration will be at the city’s Spring Festival, April 1. 

The Adana presses have an interesting history.  After he returned with what was then called shell shock from World War I, and after being laid off from work, Donald Aspinall of Twickenham, England designed a model press for hobby printers.  According to historian Bob Richardson of St. Bride’s Library, Aspinall  advertised it before he had any presses actually to sell.  When money started rolling in, he went to the police to ask what  to do. The reply was blunt: ‘Make the presses.”

When production had stopped because of World War II—and after the company had a new owner—it was approached by members of the Norwegian underground to come up with a small press that could be used by the Nazi resistance. The manager explained that the only thing they had to offer was a single pre-war wooden flatbed, which was in pieces. The visitors took it and returned seven days later with a modified machine, half its size. After securing an order for 50 of the machines from the government, Adana sent out a call for old flatbed presses that could be cut down and then dropped from airplanes behind enemy lines across occupied Europe. They were used for the production of propaganda material and forged documents.

History and image from St. Bride’s Foundation

The Depot and its board members have two different models of Adana presses which were popular with hobby and commercial printers. 

Two of the presses are horizontal Quarto flatbed presses: They have a rotating ink disk and two ink rollers which extend out over the disk as it prints and then ink the type form as the press is opened again. The pressure is delivered like the early 19th century “Parlour Press” invented by Edward Cowper:  It hooks the end of the handle when the platen is closed, to press down to print. 

The other three presses are known as Eight-Five Adanas—named for the size of the chase.   They operate like American Kelsey presses,  with a front handle and a toggle lever.

 Adana eventually  was bought out by Caslon (which has its own illustrious history that can be said to trace back to typefounder William Caslon, born in 1692).  Caslon made the presses until 1999, but then re-started the brand in 2016

1938 Ad

For more information about any presses owned by Letterpress Depot or about volunteering at upcoming printing events, call/text 720-480-5358 or email englewooddepot@gmail.com.

Today is Colorado Gives Day

Our living museum needs your breath of support to truly come alive. (click on any image to donate)

Working to revive a Colt’s Armory Press

While we appreciate donations any day, today your support will increase our share of an Incentive Fund from Community First Foundation and other community partners. And you don’t even have to live in Colorado!

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Today! Tomorrow! Colorado Gives!

You don’t have to live in Colorado to help us make the old new again!

Dave Laskowski II’s Lego printing and Bryan Dahlberg’s installation of restored Sanfa Fe sign

Rehabbing letterpress and our Depot building, with your help!

Click on image to donate

If you’d prefer to donate offline, email englewooddepot@gmail.com or call 720-480-5358. Any which way you can help…Thank You!

3 days until Dec 6 midnight when we turn into pumpkins

One of my favorite shots through the flywheel. You can click on any picture to donate. We appreciate support as we celebrate letterpress and battle supply chain issues and subcontractors.

Funding helps us fix presses, hold workshops and, of course, rehab our 1915 Depot building!

Tick tick tick four days until Colorado Gives ends on Dec. 6

We so appreciate everyone who has given so far, either through Colorado Gives or Facebook. And as you can imagine with the cost of construction these days, more is always welcome! We will be counting down the days here. A beautful and intriguing typeface to share in appreciation. Click on ANY image to donate.

William H. Page No. 171, Hamilton No. 299, printed by Tom Parson

THANK YOU

With thanks for your continuing support & participation...

…we offer a quick view back - the progress of construction, rehabilitation, preservation and re-purposing the historic Englewood Depot for our letterpress museum. Your donations through Colorado Gives helped make all this possible - now we need that help for the next steps to come.

BEFORE: with many years of neglect after the historic Depot was moved from its original location in 1994. The foundation level was unfinished and inaccessible, with a plywood fence and muddy fill-dirt. The Depot was deteriorated and boarded shut.

SINCE: drainage solved, concrete retaining wall relocated, ADA access ramp added, a new stucco lower wall with garage doors, home for the Letterpress Depot presses, type, workshops, classes. Funding with community support - a successful Indiegogo campaign - thank you! These first steps included historic research, architectural design work, a survey, civil and structural engineering consultation, and a preservation easement with the Colorado Historical Foundation to protect the historic aspect of the Depot in perpetuity.

 NOW: Rehabilitation work is under way for the upper level, workshops and letterpress projects are happening with portable equipment and with access to other printshops in the community. Your support is needed! Please donate for our year-end campaign on Colorado Gives. With an initial $5000 match, this month we have raised $10,375. We need to quadruple this now for our next grant application to complete rehabilitation for our living letterpress museum.

THANK YOU!

Thanks for donations! More welcome!

It’s Colorado Gives time through December 6. All your donations will go towards helping get the Depot in shape and to be able to print even more. If you give during this fundraiser, extra $$ comes our way. Here are some images of people enjoying our presses in the wild, from Englewood to Castle Rock!

Click on either image or go to https://www.coloradogives.org/letterpressdepot

Thank you!

First $5,000 in donations matched!

Your donations have helped us do so much - roughing in of electrical and plumbing, removal of water damaged plaster, retrieving and restoring presses for our historic collection, all while giving us the support needed to print at fairs and schools…

Of course, there’s more to be done, with your help. Between now and December 6, please contribute to Letterpress Depot via Colorado Gives. Just click on the button, below. We will be so grateful.

Wayzgoose this Saturday, October 1, 10:30-2!

What’s a Wayzgoose you ask? There are no fowl involved, though back in the day this printers entertainment may have included a goose, when the master printer threw a feast for his workers.

Photo by Jean Ange via Birdshare

As the geese fly south for the winter, the Letterpress Depot and the Rocky Mountain Letterpress Society (aka The Wrong Fonts) will have our own modern Wayzgoose. Instead of a goose, we will offer a swap meet/sale of letterpress printing materials & equipment, light lunch & refreshments, an open tour of the continuing historic rehabilitation construction of the Depot building and an intro to our letterpress printshop and museum collection. Please join in the inky fun, October 1, 10:30 - 2 pm.

We’re located at 3098 South Galapago, at Galapago & Dartmouth in Englewood. If you have any questions, email us at englewooddepot@gmail.com or call 720-480-5358. And if you want more on the interesting etymology of Wayzgoose, check out this fun post on the Word Wide Web.

We have an electrical pole!

(Now just need electricity —supply chain issues plaguing us!) But it’s a start. Xcel did an amazing job, “digging” out a 5-1/2 foot hole with a very precise vacuum-cleaner type machine.

and, again with precision, swinging around another pole up the alley to hold a new transformer

Fun fact: the poles are set in the ground with…Polecrete!

Not so fun fact: Months of delay on our panel box arrival, now scheded for end of sigh October. But hey we have a pole when we’re ready for sparks to fly.

Getting inky at book fair

Great meeting people and printing with them at the recent Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. Three presses kept busy by board members Tom Parson, Bryan Dahlberg, Ian Van Mater, Marc Silberman and Dave Laskowski II.

Hot time printing!

Inspiring the next generation at Cushing Park, during Englewood’s Neighborhood Nights. Little Dry Creek in the park was the site where gold first was discovered in Colorado!

Having a blast printing! #July4th #MeetaPressMonday

An etching press found at an estate sale saw its first action this past week when Albert Gallo brought over a large copper printing plate to proof.  Albert describes himself as “husband, son, brother, hard worker, thinker of things, maker and avid bike rider. Collector of hobbies.”  Fresh from printing at Ridgefest in Wheat Ridge, he wanted to see what this strange large printing plate he had acquired looked like.

Tom Parson thought of our new etching press. Normally used for intaglio printing, an etching press consists of metal rollers between which a flat press-bed slides under pressure. A design is acid-etched or engraved into a plate which then has ink rubbed into its grooves. After the surface of the plate is wiped clean, heavy pressure is applied and the design is transferred to paper. It’s the opposite of relief printing where the material (like type) is raised and the inked surface is printed.

But a press like this can also be used for relief printing if the rollers are adjusted, useful for situations where the item to be printed is not type high (all items in letterpress printing must be  0.9186 high). So in went Albert’s copper plate

And out came

This plate of the world’s largest wire rope is now in the Depot collection, donated by Albert.

Also this week, Alicia McKim’s class from the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design came to visit and printed wood type and cuts from our collection on a Vandercook proof press.

All this in the shadow of work being done by Tom and visiting Seattle printer, writer and Depot supporter Paul Hunter on the challenging Challenge press, model 1528KA. This cylinder proof press had seen some hard times and needed a lot of TLC.

They hoped a broken cast iron part could be welded.

But sadly the weld did not hold.  In fact, two replacement parts for the 1528KA will be needed to fix this beautiful press. Where in the world? Or it will have to be offered out as parts for someone else’s project. Heavy metal inky hope!

Busy May (but wait, how is it almost over?)

An unwelcome surprise this year was the discovery that the Depot’s main structural beam and other supports had rotted. But this month, temporary vertical supports to hold up the roof were erected, the old vertical and horizontal beams replaced and the temporary ones removed. All part of the rehabilitation funded by the State Historical Fund and donors like you.

We also did more printing with elementary school kids - at Bishop, Cherrelyn and, below, at Charles Hay World School.

Board members Kirk Benson and Dave Laskowski II. Kirk also is an arts specialist in Englewood schools.

Then it was time for the Rocky Mountain Stamp Show at the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds. Some samples of what we printed: Board member Marc Silberman designed the vegetable laden-tribute to Colorado agriculture for the event and Executive Director Tom Parson had fun printing various cuts.

Also some great railroad finds at the next door ephemera show!

Volunteers always welcome! Englewooddepot@gmail.com or call 720-480-5358.

Newbie at the Depot - #MeetaPressMonday

An 1870s Curtis and Mitchell Columbian #2 Rotary Press has arrived at the Depot, donated by board member Bill Whitley. This beauty has a fancy flywheel, cast iron Columbia cameos and a monogrammed treadle.

Todd Simmons of Wolverine Publishing originally got the press in Wyoming and displayed it in his Fort Collins bookstore. At the time, Bill told Todd he’d be interested in the press if he ever parted with it, and in January he gave it to Bill and was pleased it would be headed to the Depot. Don Hildred, who had made chases for the press, helped in the Depot delivery.  

Unique to this press when it was first sold was a device which provided a pause in the action of the platen to make feeding it easier.

This pause or dwell, which was controlled by two side arms and an inner cam, was invented by Jarvis Burrell. He turned his patents over to Edward Curtis and Edward Mitchell, two Bostonians involved in the printing trade. They produced our 6x9 platen model as well as an 8x12.  C&M went out of business in 1892 partly because of the competition from 123 other platen presses, according to a 1996 letter to Type & Press.

Curtis and Mitchell also made table top models:

Image from the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, taken by Centennial Photographic Company

One of my personal favorites, for its size and ease of use, is our tabletop C&M Columbian #1. It has made many appearances at fairs and schools.

Busy times for Depotians! A steamroller and much more!

While board members Dave Laskowski II, Kirk Benson and Elanor Harris were designing and carving a large MDF board for the steamroller event…

… Tom Parson and Marc Silberman were printing with students at Bishop and Cherrelyn Elementary Schools in Englewood, thanks to Kirk who is a teacher at both schools. They also taught printing to some adults at Marc’s studio the same day.

Tom also was on a quest to see what was salvageable from two of Dana Smith’s presses burned during the Marshall fire—sadly not much—and from artist/photographer/designer Glenn Cuerden’s incredible archive of work, damaged by a broken water pipe.

The first of MANY rescue carloads for Glenn’s collection. More on that work in a later blog.

Because now it’s time to see the Steamroller event at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design! Elanor, Depot president Ian Van Mater and Erin Rademacher put ink and more ink on the board, then laid it on the ground, covered it with plywood and let the steamroller roll!

Here are a few of the other prints steamrolled that day!

So much has been going on since our Open House tour as part of Mo’Print in March. Thank you to all who came.

If you missed, or want to do/see more (we always have more to do, more to show) come to our meetup Saturday April 23 - englewooddepot@gmail.com or 720-480-5358 for details.

One day until Open Studio - more presses you'll meet!

Saturday, March 26, we will have a Mo’Print Open Studio tour 10-4, where you can see all our presses, and some even in action. Here are some you will get to meet (for info on larger platens, go here; for smaller platens, here).

Hand Presses

Bryan Dahlberg will be printing on the Reliance A model Washington hand press

Reliance iron handpress, Paul Schniedewend & Co, model New A ~1898

The “New A” model Reliance was advertised in 1898 as weighing in at 975 pounds. Schniedewend went on to manufacture a wide variety of Reliance presses from the 10x8 baby Reliance to the 5,000 pound Mastodon. This model have previously been restored by Rob Barnes.

Also at the Depot:

F Wesel iron handpress  ~1895

This press, which we were told survived falling out of the fourth story of a building rocked by the 1906 SF earthquake (check the welds), was built by F. Wesel Manufacturing of New York. Wesel and many others turned out these 19th century presses once the original patent held by Samuel Rust and later by R. Hoe & Co expired. It was donated to the Depot by the estate of Jim Grisenti.

Other large presses

Our Heidelberg

Heidelberg Windmill 10x12   Manufactured 1923-85!

From Letterpress Commons: A key feature of the design is the rotating gripper attached to the moving platen, which grips and releases the paper stock.  It’s this gripper which has stimulated American owners to dub it “the windmill”.  It’s also the reason why the presses have a large metal plate embossed “Original Heidelberg” high on the front.  Without it, it’s too tempting to bend over the finished stock to inspect one’s handiwork, only to receive a severe facial injury from the rotating gripper.  

Campbell Century Pony newspaper press  ~1893

The Campbell Printing & Manufacturing Company produced presses as far back as the 1880s. Its “Century Pony” press came in three sizes: this is its smallest, with a printing area of 22” x 34”. Used in Leadville and later for printing posters for Lakeside Amusement Park, it was donated to the Depot by John Major Jenkins.

Cylinder Presses  

Challenge Proof Press

Challenge proof press, 1528KA* 

C&P Cylinder Press with paper feeder 10x15*    early 1940s

Only 250 of this model were ever made - they had to stop production for World War 2,  when all resources were diverted to the war effort. During the war, the company emphasized the connection between printing and democracy. One ad read  “Truly truth is mankind’s door to freedom — the printing press the key to that door.” While another said “the printing press, since its origin, has been the one indestructible weapon in man’s struggle for freedom.”

Vandercook 219 AB power (belongs to board member Ian Van Mater’s)*   1948-58

This model also has an adjustable bed. According to the Vandercook Census, there are only six other power carriage models in use, making this a rare find.

 Line Casting Machines

Intertype—unfortunately not hot right now!

Intertype C-4

This machine helped put out the Denver Post until they, like most newspapers in the 1970’s and 80’s , moved to phototypesetting and then computer typesetting. You can imagine the operator sitting in their chair, all the news of the day flowing through their keyboard. It is similar in operation to a Linotype machine. The Saguache Crescent still uses their 101 year old Linotype to put out their paper.

Ludlow

 A hot metal typesetting system, which casts  slugs of type, out of type metal primarily consisting of lead. These slugs are used for the actual printing, and then are melted down and recycled and re-used on the spot. It was used to print large-type material such as newspaper headlines or posters.

Any questions, any interests, any ideas, contact us at englewooddepot@gmail.com, 720-480-5358, @letterpressdepot on Facebook & Instagram, @letpressdepot on Twitter.

More #meetapressMonday...on a Wednesday. Come see in person!

On Monday, we looked at our big platen presses. Today it’s time for a few of their smaller siblings. You can see them all at our Open Studio, part of Mo’Print, Saturday March 26, 10-4.

Curtis and Mitchell Columbian Press #1 at Cherry Creek High School’s Fine Arts Friday

Curtis & Mitchell Columbian No.1 tabletop platen ~1878

A workhorse for the Depot, this press with its portability and easygoing nature makes appearances at schools and fairs.

Heather P. on the roller press as a past Rocky Mountain Book & Paper Fair

Vandercook Office Proof Press

Another traveling favorite that even children can use, this provides an easy way to proof type and cuts. Although the Depot’s model is 20th century, proof presses have an important history. According to the Smithsonian, “The invention of portable tabletop printing presses at the time of the American Civil War allowed for better communication in the field. Portable presses were purchased by several Union and Confederate military units.”

 Other roller style proof presses at the Depot include

• Poco Proof press

• Vandercook Truss press

Kelsey 3x5 printing a very tiny book

Kelsey Presses

The first presses of choice by young people way back in the day. Twenty one year old founder William Kelsey put up the first ad for his press in 1872, pushing it “For Boys..…Delightful, money making amusement.”  He sold it for $5, figuring he could make the money back on selling type and other necessities.

In the Depot, we have

• Kelsey 3x5

• Kelsey 5x8, model P

Other small platens at the Depot:

Chandler and Price Pilot

The Pilot Press, manufactured for nearly 100 years by Chandler & Price and later re-produced by both Craftsmen Machinery Company of Boston and American Printing Equipment of New York, is said to be one of the most sought-after presses in the world today.

 Sigwalt Non-Pareil (~Golding Official)  Manufactured between 1900-20

The Nonpareil was actually seen by many as a patent infringement because it was basically a carbon copy of a Golding press at the time. Sigwalt later revised the press into the Ideal line and kept production until the late 1950's or so.

Etching press

A find by board member Marc Silberman, who grabbed it after it was being discarded. The model or similar is still available for sale online.

More presses to post later this week. Any questions, email us at englewooddepot@gmail.com or call 720-480-5358.