People leave presses in funny places!
A while back, whilst walking through the pedestrian underpass at the Elephant & Castle, London I found an Adana just sitting in the subway. I presume it was a cast-off from the London College of Communication, but why it was just abandoned like a stray dog in the subway I really don’t know.
And only last week whilst walking round my bit of Birmingham I spotted a Vertical Miehle looking rather lonely and lost in the reception of a disused steel-pressing factory.
I feel moved to start up a rescue home for abandoned printing presses. Presses are people too and I get rather distressed when I see them treated badly!
I am particularly fond of the Adana and the Vertical Miehle as these were just two of the presses I grew up with. They lived in the garage at the bottom of the garden, were loved and cared for by my dad for nearly half a century, and were instrumental in my typographic education.
The Adana was a great little press on which to learn to print; even as a child whilst standing on a box so I could reach the handle, I managed to pull a passable impression; and the Vertical Miehle was a most versatile cylinder press, which could run almost any kind of job on a huge variety of stock.
Two serviceable presses which taught me a great deal about printing, and when I was no longer able to care for them they went to good homes: Graham Moss at the Incline Press in Oldham acquired the Adana whilst the Vertical Miehle went to the Amberley Working Museum in Sussex. Both presses will now live out their twilight years in comfort.