Beginner from Greece

Hello everyone!

I’m new here and thought I’d tell you a little about myself and start off with a question.
I study arts in a university in Greece. Apart from that, I’ve been in bookbinding for about two years and in these two years me and a friend (a graphics designer) have designed, printed (by “printed” I mean given out to a professional typographer) and bound a couple of books purely for our pleasure and in very small numbers, 15 or 20 copies to give out to friends. These books contain either work by our friends or our silly work (like poems, short stories, engravings, photographs). Anyway it’s a very rewarding endeavour so we thought we’d take it to the next level and start printing ourselves, the texted parts at least.
We have acquired a couple of books on letterpress printing and done our Net research on presses and equipment and have concluded that, given the small number of copies, a tabletop lever platen press with a chase no less than 7x11 would be the best press to start with.
And here comes the hard part and question. Every press we’ve seen for sale is either in the US or UK which, given the bulk and weight of the presses, makes it forbidding to buy.
So is there any chance someone might know of a dealer somewhere closer to Greece (maybe Italy?) where we could buy a fairly good press?

Thanks a lot and sorry for the rather long post :)

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Italy is probably not going to be easy either, but have a look here: http://www.netzwerk-druckgrafik.de/index.htm

or send an e-mail to Lisa Grim, an American in Berlin, who’s got a very good press for sale: [email protected]

and this one, in the south of Germany, is worth trying: http://www.bleisatzkontor.de

Check out Max Simmel, they sell refurbished Korrex proofing presses.

I just found the link to the table top platen press: http://bostontiegel.blogspot.com/

Thanks a lot for the info!
Unfortunately the German press is out of my price range especially if you add the transport costs. Very nice press though.

Consider trying to find a late Adana Hand Quarto in good condition — 7x9 chase size, two rollers, and because it is mostly aluminum, not as expensive to ship (mine weighs about 25lbs and it and a large font of type, 5 type cases, and paper, as well as accessories, were flown in a 70lb checked bag for $100USD from the USA to Costa Rica. UK to Greece should be comparable in shipping cost.

Bob

You can also get in touch with the British Printers Society, a year and a half ago one of their members moved from the UK to Greece or Turkey with all the printing equipment and wrote an article in their magazine about transport and setting it up. An Adana 8 x 5 weighs 12-15 kilograms and are regularly offered in the UK.

Check out the refurbished 8x5 Adanas at http://www.caslon.co.uk/html/adana.html. I once enquired about having one of these shipped from the UK to Israel and the price was not unreasonable. You can e-mail them for an estimate. I eventually found my tabletop platen by scavenging old print shops in Tel Aviv until I found someone who was willing to sell me a press that had been standing unused in a corner of the shop for many years.

Thanks a lot for all the answers!
sharkess that is my plan of action too, search the local print shops and look for ads from european sellers at the same time.
I considered an Adana at first because they’re pretty easy to find in Europe but was put off by the small chase sizes. So I’ll start looking into Adanas only if nothing else comes up.
Just today I came in contact (through a friend who’s a bookbinder) with someone who has a press and lots of unsorted type in his basement and is willing to sell it but I haven’t seen the press yet. I’ll take some pictures on Monday when I meet him and upload them here, so that you can give me some opinions.
Thanks again for the help!

There is an interesting issue of Η Καθημέρινη Επτά Ημέρες
on letterpress printing (7 April 1996) Ελληνιή Τυπογράφεια
which shows a group of printers who gather regularly at a Press called Τυπογραφείο της “Στιγμής” I don’t know any more about this, as Greek letterpress is unknown to us. I can make a copy of the issue (about 30 pages) if you like.
There was a wonderful typefoundry (Victoria AE) in Athens but now somewhere in hiding. The Sunday supplement also did an issue (which I missed getting) on hand book-binding about the same time. I am at [email protected]. Norman McKnight.

Thanks a lot for the pointer and the offer Norman but I found the issue on Kathimerini’s online archive. Here’s the link to the pdf file, although I don’t think it’ll be useful to many people, it’s in Greek: http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kath/7days/1996/04/07041996.pdf

Here’s the one on bookbinding, as well:
http://wwk.kathimerini.gr/kath/7days/1998/02/08021998.pdf

I was aware of “Στιγμή” Publications, Aimilios Kaliakatsos (Αιμίλιος Καλιακάτσος) who is in charge is a rather well known printer, but I thought they had gone offset. I’ll check it out next time I’m in Athens and inform you here if anyone is interested.
As far as the typefoundry is concerned a quick net search gave no results so I’ll look into that as well when I’m in Athens.
Thanks a lot!

After some search I managed to find a very nice tabletop press at a very reasonable price in Greece. It actually is pretty much identical to the one in the boston-tiegel ad above. I think it’s a Hogenforst “Stabil” 1, EH. The only thing missing is the gauge pins for the paper, so if anyone could provide some close up photos of the pins for this press i’d be very grateful. Here are some pics:

image: 2. Stabil.jpg

2. Stabil.jpg

image: Stabil 1.jpg

Stabil 1.jpg

Gauge pins are normally sold by the dozen. You can order them from Drucken-und-Lernen in Germany.

Sorry, meant grippers not gauge pins. Messed up the terminology.
Thanks for the tip though, I actually don’t have gauge pins either.

Hello Ecm,
I’m from Italy. Here you can find different Heidelberg Windmill 10x15!

Keep us in touch,
Fabio