Early Line-O-Scribe Help
Greetings pressers! I recently found an early Line-O-Scribe for sale with a “give me an offer” price. I’m not familiar with this model and haven’t found much info online about it. [Image of press attached.] I’m on the hunt for a portable press I can use for demonstrating to college students.
The press moves freely and prints well according to the seller. They also told me the print area is only 7x14. Does that sound right to anyone?
The unit comes with the base its sitting on and is missing the drawers that would go under the press. Is it missing anything else from what you can see? The upper grid looks like it could use some love.
Any additional info and/or suggestion on what to offer would be greatly appreciated.
LineOScribe.jpg
I have the same model press, although a larger size. The bed on mine is 14x22. That does look like a smaller press. This style line-o-scribe has a fold down frisket with metal bars to hold the paper. It originally had a metal sheet on the bed with matching grid, making registration quite easy. Looks like a very clean unit, I’ve seen them listed for $800 at least.
Mine is rusty but works, with a sheet metal frisket someone fabricated and missing the frisket bars. Capable little press though. The bed is not very rigid, but there are 2 impression rollers for this press. One rides under the bed, and another above the frisket. Effectively Squeezing the type and sheet together between the two rollers. Impression is adjustable on the fly. There is a lever with a tooth and catch that you lift to adjust impression.
For a comparison, I picked mine up I believe 3 years ago, for about $200 I believe. Larger but worse condition. I’d see about offering similar for that press. I believe I have a file somewhere where someone recreated the press grid. Easy enough to print off a new sheet for the frisket. Good Luck!
Oh, I believe these date around early 1930’s. I want to say 1932 by patents, although early patents are late 1920’s, but I think it took some time to refine. These are the ealiest versions of the line-o-scribe as we know it, and were first manufactured in Adrian Michigan. Later sold to Globe and then Morgan companies, both in Chicago. I do believe there are some examples in this style that are not marked Adrian Michigan. Thats most of the history off the top of my head.
Brent
Perhaps my suggestion is on the low side. $400 might be a better starting place to offer for this press. It is small, but fairly capable.
Brent
I have the same press and love it. It’s fairly portable - I’ve used it for public demonstrations and small classes.
You can get good color registration using the tympan grid and grippers, and the roller height is adjustable, so you don’t have to use a galley like the photo shows.
From what I can tell in the photo, nothing else looks missing beyond the drawers. At least compared to mine.
I recreated the tympan grid as a printable pdf so I can mark them up and replace them when necessary. Here’s the link to my original comment with the download links: https://www.briarpress.org/61194#comment-81277