Too Late
An auction held last week (that I missed) of a large commercial plant contained some good letterpress items, including galley racks, lots of leads/slugs/ Windmill, Miehle Verticals, stones, type cabinets, all tucked away in an otherwise very contemporary printing operation. See:
http://thomasauction.hibid.com/catalog/80909/independent-printing-compan...
and this plant, in the college and Shakespeare festival town of Ashland, Oregon, was within reasonable distance of both Northern California and the Portland area. There is more of this out there still that is coming up for disposal. It would be beneficial for those looking for substantial presses and related equipment, more than the toy and table top presses, to get on a major plant liquidation email list like Thomas to find out what comes up. Thomas sells plants all over the United States.
Can’t see what any of it went for. A bit far from Ohio. Heavy stuff to haul. I hauled 8,000 lbs of Ludlow items it was easy.
I’m not sure why they don’t post sale prices. We have made several long hauls over the years—1400 miles from the San Juan Islands in Washington with 29,000 pounds, Phoenix with about 600 miles with a truck load of Monotype equipment, and the long haul from New Hampshire with a full truck and that was a little over 2000 miles. And the short round trips to Denver of 650 miles made too many times. If it’s stuff you want and the price is right, go for it. Fortunately, my most recent acquisition was delivered by Dave Seat in May and that move from his trailer to the shop was 20 feet. And I almost forgot the Miehle Vertical from George Mills that was almost exactly 1000 miles from Ft. Smith. This doesn’t count the 3 semi-trailer loads from Cincinnati when I purchased NA Graphics. I am, however, now at my limit—I’m running out of time in which to enjoy all this stuff.
Space might be a consideration too!
But the New Hampshire trip had important non-printing stuff too.
Personally my most memorable trip was from Windsor, Colorado to Silverton in a large rental truck loaded with the remains of the Windsor Beacon letterpress shop. Nightime, early May, some snow on Red Mountain Pass. My companions complimented my driving but said they were glad we didn’t meet anything because I drove in the middle of the road all the way over the pass.
Red Mountain Pass—just brought 20,000# of railroad rail over the same road last night and it’s a road to scare the bejesus out of most flat land drivers. The one section out of Ouray for about 1/4 mile has absolutely no shoulder past the white line and it is a several hundred foot drop straight down the mountain side. Coming up that road in a white-out blizzard is an experience of a lifetime, even for us locals. There is a recent video that shows the road George and I have braved several times to bring letterpress to the wilderness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqpo7EK3Q0o&feature=youtu.be
To say nothing of making trips to the doctor, dentist or just a grocery store!
Yikes! What a video!!!