copy press – Peachey Conservation

January 27, 2022January 27, 2022

Leszek Knyrek’s 2022 Nipping Press Calendar

Some of Knyrek’s nipping press collection. Photo from his Kickstarter page.

Leszek Knyrek, a Polish bookbinder for 25 years and currently a student in Book and Paper conservation at West Dean (England), has a kickstarter for his really beautiful calendar featuring some of his 60+ nipping press collection. He calls it his “a bit late” calendar. The photography is really well done, and his collection amazing. I’m mainly familiar with US and UK models, there are some really elaborate European ones in the images. Full disclosure: he sent me a free copy of the calendar. But I’m looking forward to purchasing it for the next four years, maybe more if his collection keeps expanding!

Knyrek’s Kickstarter

I couldn’t find a number of presses the William Streeter collected for his book on the right.
Barbara Rhodes and William Wells Streeter. *Before Photocopying: The Art and History of Mechanical Copying 1780 – 1938* (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press and Northampton, Massachusetts: Heraldry Bindery, 1999)

August 18, 2020August 18, 2020

Copy Press Mounted on a Safe

Last week, I blogged about a scene from a movie depicting a copy press on top of a safe, and wondered if it was a way they were actually used in offices. Darryn Schneider of DAS Bookbinding in Australia sent me this wonderful image he found from the State Library of Victoria. Bingo! Well, at least there is one documented example….

Copy press on top of a safe. Interior of a railway office, ca. 1901-1940. State Library of Victoria. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/38847

August 11, 2020August 11, 2020

A Copy Press in Use? Or a Prop?

A still from Billy Wilder’s 1951 “Ace in the Hole”

Many — most? — bookbinders use a letterpress copy press for quick and light pressing needs, often called a “nip”. These presses were originally used in offices, for duplicating letters and other memoranda. Intriguingly, there are alternative uses for them.

They often have little daylight, which is the distance between the platens when fully open, and the thread pitch allows them to speedily move up and down. Because of this, they don’t generate a ton of pressure. Rhodes and Streeter have written a wonderfully comprehensive book about them.(1)

But apart from some advertising (and possibly some photos?), we don’t really know a lot about how these were used and installed in an office. They are often quite ornate, since they were presumably on display.

This is why the still from Wilder’s movie (which is a great and relevant movie to our current time, btw) interests me. It makes a lot of sense to mount it on top of a safe, since they are both extremely heavy and there is a lot of torque when twisting the wheel. And the height of the tightening wheel looks to be a very comfortable chest height. But is it a reflection of actual placement or just a prop?

1. Barbara Rhodes and William Wells Streeter. Before Photocopying: The Art and History of Mechanical Copying 1780 – 1938 (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press and Northampton, Massachusetts: Heraldry Bindery, 1999)

Ron Lieberman sent an image of a gorgeous press stand he has.