If you are offered a whole bunch of letterpress stuff for free, with the only condition being that you have to drive and pick it up, you take it! That is what I did this weekend.
Doug and I drove an hour and a half into the middle of nowhere VA to go through this guy’s workroom. Apparently, this guy’s dad was a printer and he left a bunch of letterpress stuff in the home. The son is selling the house and just wants everything gone. So we went through it and found some lovely treasures. Amongst the junk there was a Proof Press, a trashcan full of type, a slug cutter and some other interesting things. Of everything, I am most excited about the proof press. Doug and I are going to have to spend some time getting it into working order, but once it is it will be great fun to print on! I love new toys!
When we went through the trashcan of type we found a complete 72 point font. I am not sure what the font is, but it is HUGE! I am not sure what we are going to do with it…. Maybe we will end up selling it, maybe not. In fact, we may end up selling a bunch of the stuff we got just because we have no use for some of it.
In any case, it was great fun to get all of this stuff and I really think the new press will be wonderful to experiment on. And on Tuesday we are going to this guy’s other home to pick up more stuff. This trip is a little closer (thank goodness!) and has smaller stuff (more on that once I see what there is to see).