Job Case Identification

Hi,
I am working on organizing the letterpress and all that goes with it at Grand Valley State University and we have acquired a job case cabinet that I would like more information on. If anyone could help me identify it or give me any other information that would be great!
Thanks!

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The cabinet you have pictured appears to be one of the many variants of a Newspaper Ad Cabinet manufactured by Hamilton Wood Type in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Because of the green paint-job with the black handles it would have been sold during World War II. The Challenge Machinery Company, of Grand Haven, Michigan name-plate that is riveted onto the lip of the working top would have replaced the Hamilton plate, and is an indication that Challenge was selling them as a catalogue item. Challenge and Hamilton still exist after a fashion.

Challenge still manufactures bindery items like paper-cutters and paper drills and Hamilton is a museum in flux, having had to move their collection early this year. They no longer manufacture any printer’s wood goods, having only the equipment for wood type manufacturing. The cabinet manufacturing part of the company, owned by Thermo Fischer Scientific, closed their Two Rivers manufacturing facility in 2012, moving the wood goods to Texas, and the steel manufacturing plant to Mexico. They had not produced any printers furniture for decades.

Paul