Wood Type

First let me apologize for not being ‘active’ on Briar Press for the past four months. I suffered a stroke in early May which effected my visual perception and the act of typing has not been easy.I have had 12 weeks of therapy and things are getting back to normal. The prognosis is a full recovery after my brain re-wires itself.

Jim Daggs was diagnosed with dimensia earlier this year, and between the two of us not much was done to promote the 25th Annual Midwest & Great Northern Printer’s Fair.

To get back on subject. I am writing now to let everyone know that I will be bringing a lot of wood type fonts to be sold at the Saturday (Sept. 22) morning (8 a.m. to noon) swap meet at the Fair.

Just last week I discovered a large cache (six full type cabinets) of wood type.I have only seen images of some of the open cases so far, but this could be the MOTHERLOAD!

I will be going down to see it next week and plan to grab a dozen or so fonts to bring back with me to sell at the Printer’s Fair.

The rest of this hoard will need a lot more attention when I can get around to it. I plan to fully identify and catalog ALL of the wood type there and produce some Excel spreadsheets with the listings getting posted before we can organize a proper auction next Spring or early summer. The seller definitely wants the wood type to go to printers that will make use of it.

I was just involved with organizing the Jim Grisenti Auction in Denver in June, in which over 70 lots of wood type were sold to happy bidders.

All of this is happening so fast, I hardly have time to properly organize or post anything.

The M&GN Printer’s Fair will take place September 20-22 at Printers’ Hall (inside Museum A), located on the Old Threshers Grounds in McMillan Park in Mt. Pleasant, IA.

Thursday and Friday are “play days” in the shop. We will be open well into the evenings on both days. No charge.

Saturday morning (8 a.m. to noon) is the swap meet (and wood type sale!) and there is only a $5 entry fee that day.

If anyone is interested in renting their own table or tables to sell things, the charge is $25/table . Contact Rick von Holdt at 515-689-4796 for tables or more information.

Terribly sorry for the short notice, but it takes me forever to even type this much.

Rick

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Rick,

So sorry to hear of your stroke, and so glad that your prognosis is good!

Kind regards, Geoff Quadland

Please note that Rick has the wrong dates on the above. The Fair is Thursday-Saturday, September 13, 14, 25.
Sorry for any confusion!

Thank you for the update and am glad that you are recovering! I look forward to seeing you at the Print Fair. I will be there to install a new tympan/frisket assembly on the Reliance hand press, and do some printing.

Jim

I am happy to hear that there are events like this located close to home in “fly-over country”. Hard to justify a trip to San Francisco or New York, but Iowa I could manage with a little planning. Maybe next year.

Double Post, Sorry.

This is a great get together for anyone interested in Letterpress. There are friends there who have lots of experience on different machines. All of which are set up and you are able to try them as well as ask questions about them.
The people are very knowledgeable and willing to share.
If you are considering a press this is the place to try some of them out and make sure it is the press best suited for you.
I have visited every year for the past 7 years and do everything I can to make it back each year, 12 hour drive from Colorado. Very worth it, learn something or find that special something at the swap meet every year.
Try to make it if you can!!!

I am glad that George had noticed I posted the wrong dates!! Swap meet is Saturday, September 15 at 8 a.m.

AND there will be two more people bringing wood type to sell so there should be around 20 or so total wood fonts there. How often do you find an opportunity like this??????

Rick

As a follow-up, there were actually 33 fonts of wood type for sale at the Printer’s Fair and they all but a few went to new homes. Those will be sold at the Hamilton Wayzgoose in early November. There were some really NICE fonts sold at reasonable prices. It was great to see it all go to other printers.

Rick