Press identification

Hi all.
I’m a newcomer to the letterpress world.
I’m trying to identify a press a friend have just found.
It has no model or serial number.
It was in use here in Spain and the person I got it from called it a “Boston”.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance!

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It’s a European manufacturer’s copy of a Golding Official (Golding Co. was located in Boston, MA USA), but I don’t know what European manufacturer made it — there seem to have been two or three that copied the Official, as did the Sigwalt Co. of Chicago USA.

Bob

Most likely to be German, check out the museum in Leipzig. Dozens of companies built this kind of presses, Krause, Hogenforst etc. and sold them on the Continent.

For the European Continent, that is a Boston Tiegel (Boston Press), more manufacturers than you can throw Darts at.
Despite tight Trade secrets and such, everybody copied from everybody with the slightest changes. More legal action back in that Time than in California Court now, You need a Makers Plate, Mark or something cast in the parts to be able to identify. Gutenberg Museum Mainz, Technische Hochschule Darmstadt or the Museum in Munich should have Catalogs tucked away somewhere to compare until found.

Of the many tabletop and treadle platen presses that I possessed and still posses, only few have a name or a number from the manufacturer. As already explained before, companies would sell them through agents (often Germans, living in the different countries, or through typefoundries like the Amsterdam Typefoundry). I happen to have two machines with a small plate of the agent affixed to them. The Vandercook that I recently bought here in France, was imported by the Debrny & Peignot foundry.

Hi all!

Thank you very much for all the answers. This is invaluable information.
We are now in a testing-stage (cleaning, making room for it, identifying missing parts, getting ink and type for it, etc.).
This is a fascinating word for a beginner.
We have already made some print test. It is great to see and hear it at work!

The press have no grippers and now this is our main problem as we have to find out how to make some for it and how to assemble them to the press.

Any help here would be muchly appreciated.

I will tell here how we progress with that.

Thanks!

Grippers are not too difficult to make, have a look at this picture. It speaks for itself. Good luck!

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Thanks for the picture, Gravemaker.
We will try to make them… but by now we are trying to understand how to how to assemble them to the press (what exactly is their position, are they movable?, etc)

Do you have any closer picture of the grippers of your press so we can take a better idea?

Thanks a lot.