mielve v-50 worth buying?

A Miehle V-50 is a 3000 lb press (similar weight to a 14 x 22 C&P or a Heidelberg 10 x 15 Windmill). It takes a working footprint of roughly 6 feet square and a is a very nice compact production cylinder letterpress. Note the word production—this is no relation to a Vandercook, except for being a cylinder press.

While this press is the first you’ve found, you need to ask yourself what are you going to be printing in the next year-or the next five years. A Vertical, while a tremendous powerhouse of a machine that I recommend to somebody running larger (500+) runs of printing, die-cutting, perforating or what all. I also would recommend it to a budding printer who wants to lay down a lot of ink and work with a large sheet. I would not recommend the press to somebody who just wants to print wedding announcements or business cards.

Being a large and productive press, the Miehle will be a draw against your pre-press/composing resources, so if you are working with a couple cases of type and a foot square imposing surface, again, not the press to have.

Not to say this isn’t a beginner press, especially if you want to print books, posters, or larger ephemera. This machine can print a 12 1/2 x 19 image onto a 14 x 20 sheet with ease and do 25000 of them a day, every day. General operating difficulty is about par with a Windmill, though it is a little more difficult to clean up. It can be run without the fountain for real short run work or numbering.

I would recommend the Boxcar Press site, as they have downloadable copies of the operating and parts manuals. I certainly would like to keep another V-50 out of trouble, but can’t recommend it to the printer who is not ready for it. If you are ready, ask the buyer for training time, also let up know where you are so that others might be nearby to help you.

Let us know what you’re thinking and what you come up with.

A good review, Mike.
I would add, that if not mechanically inclined, the Vert is an easy machine to wreck.
Verts are no so rare, here in Australia. I have 2.
I thoroughly recommend a sound drilling in Letterpress practice and principles before being distracted by the mechanics of the vert.
William of Rockley, NSW

thanks everyone. this would be my first press and i’m more interested in printing invitation size things rather than larger stuff right now so this was helpful.

csuebee, I did a quick search right here at briarpress and found at least 7 pages of discussion threads on the
miehle vertical!, also the book “Letterpress Printing”
by Paul Maravelas is a good place to start your endeavors
with letterpress,best of luck to you.james