Auctions by Boggs Equipment
Boggs Equipment has been a long time dealer in printing equipment. They now have on-line auctions and many of their auctions list letterpress equipment, type, etc. Boggs was long known as a scrapper of this stuff, especially letterpress, but they have come to realize that there is a growing market for letterpress.
You can sign up for email delivery of the auctions. The current one has a lot of letterpress material worth looking at:
http://www.bgeauctions.com/12all/index.php?action=message&l=50&c=873&m=8...
But, buyer beware and note the terms of sale and the requirement for removal of the material if you are a successful bidder. And, it always pays to inspect the equipment prior to the auction—these inspection days are usually listed. Boggs is one of the largest of the liquidators of printing plants in the US. And he has lots of business right now.
I have noticed that they frequently have cabinets full of cases but almost never have metal type (unless it’s in a galley tray); does this mean they scrap out the type? If so, do you think it would be worth contacting them to see if they would sell it, pied, very cheap to someone willing to come get it?
I suspect that Boggs Graphics is not auctioning the type because they don’t have it. Certainly in years past, they did. I’ve bought type (metal and wood) as well as furniture and even two presses.
You should contact Jack Boggs, or his son Chris. Both are nice guys and very straight forward about their business.
LD
Yes the type is scrapped. If you are seriously interested in purchasing type, why not just call them directly instead of posting?
Boggs sells millions of dollars worth of professional printing equipment yearly. Letterpress is a small percentage of that. My guess would be if they left the type in the cases, it would be more difficult for them to move out of the places they’re liquidating due to weight.
By and large, the larger audience of the cabinets come from non-printers who could care less about type.
If they were to offer you type for sell, I am certain it would be pyed as they do not have the time nor resources to separate each set.