Farley Proofing Press £425,732.00 read and laugh

Oh that was fun. Too bad it is pick up only.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Farley-Proof-Press-Pre-Gutenberg-Guaranteed-is...

DGM

John - That was one of the most humorous things on EBAY across the pond.

DGM - Want to go halves? I will pick it up, I have family there. You can show your students what its like to print on a really old press!

That was absolutely entertaining.

What do you think the Museum thinks, Gutenburg - Museum Mainz?

Peter

Peter,
I’d totally go halves on it with you, but we’re Going Digital. I can’t buy anything without a Like button.

Dan

The Farley (without feed board) sold on ebay uk this week was a bargin at only £4118.80

Guys,
I am still at awe. I am shocked and still have not stopped laughing about this.
This guys has to know a little something about the trade to offer that type of information. Or is he a Pretender?

This made my day.

Peter

For anyone that doesn’t know this listing was a reaction to a Farley proofing press that really did sell on ebay for just over £4k earlier this week. It seems to have caused quite a stir on Twitter etc, and even made an article on Printweek:

http://www.printweek.com/print-week/news/1159336/farley-proofing-press-s...

While obviously great news for the seller, it’s worrying in the sense that proofing press prices (already ridiculous) will only inflate from here as people see this blip as a realistically achievable sale price. Great news if you’ve got some already, but not so good if you’re trying to get into printing. Expect to see 6x4 Adanas on Buy It Now for £1k any day now…

This is unavoidable, as more and more people push into “letterpressing” and don’t take the Time to educate themselves by asking Questions, they end up filling the pockets of the ones making chance of the situation.
I’m in Southern California and the Lore of People having bought stripped down Windmills and rusty platen Presses for bundles of cash are galore.
Letterpress has become a Education of a Weekend or two, not the 8 years I had to put in to get what was needed to own a Press.

While I obviously can’t say in this instance, there are many not-quite-aboveboard reasons for seemingly inexpensive items to sell for absurdly large amounts. Money laundering is the most common, but unregistered gifts to politicians, interest-free loans, gifts above IRS tax-free gift limits, sales to shills for the purposes of documenting inflated insurance values, or to inflate perceived market value of the rest of your stock, also happen quite frequently.

And then sometimes there’s a rich guy whose daughter Veruca wants that one and she wants it now. It’s had to prove one way or the other.