---

EXCELSIOR PRESS HOME | PRESSES AVAILABLE

Cathy's Dad's 2 Chandler & Price Printing Presses & Rosback Perforator For Sale/Rescue in Tennessee available as of 10/22/2017 must be removed by December, 2017 $Best offer or Rescue Presses are dry but surface-rusted. Easy-access loading from garage. Moving Assistance Available "My cousin is still in town and says he has equipment to move the presses if anyone needs help."

---

Hello - Alan

I found your site - and I really appreciate your devotion to the craft and quick response.  Here are the pictures.  Hope you can see enough to have something to work with.  I sure wish I had read your articles before we got back there to clean out the junk around the presses - we might have known where to look for the serial number. 

The presses are located in a garage in Tennessee.  They have been sitting in there since the '70s.  Dad lost his location as a print shop owner and everything moved to our basement and garage.  He sold off almost all of his presses and type cases (and scary paper cutter) but still had these two presses, the perforator, some random type, slugs, and oil cans in the basement.  I'm in Arizona but have local folks in Tennessee who have access to the property.

Dad started his business in the 1950's with my uncle.  My uncle spun off into his own shop.  My older cousin worked for my uncle, then operated that shop himself until it closed.  My cousin is still in town and says he has equipment to move the presses if anyone needs help.

Dad actually retired as a printer from the local housing authority in the early 1990's.  But, he still had "ink" in his veins.  He passed away in 2015 shortly after the death of his bride of 55 years who pre-deceased him by 18 days.  He suffered from Alzheimer's.  In the end, he would be doing printing jobs in his sleep -  his arms and hands were moving around feeding sheets of paper into the invisible presses in his dreams.  He was adjusting the settings and always moving his hands while working on that job in his mind.  As if a stack of paper might need to be moved from one spot to the next, he was working through the night like an endless assembly line.  You never really knew if he was awake or asleep because his movements seemed so deliberate and sure.  Though he lost some of his vocabulary and names of those around him, his dreams remembered the apron tied around his waist, the stack of paper in front of him, and the sounds of the press swiftly yet softly laying down one more piece of printed paper.


Our goal to sell this stuff would be by the end of this year if at all possible so we can close out his estate and say good-bye to his old friends - the presses.  We hope the click-clack and whir of the presses will delight a new generation of artisans.  They've been in the family a very long time and really do need a new home before they are unrecognizable or unrecoverable.  Saying "good-bye" to the presses is really our final "good-bye" to dad since "the printer" was who he was for so much of our lives.  They will be the last things to go from the estate.

The larger press includes an advanced inking system with a full ink fountain, and four form rollers for excellent ink coverage, a brake, and an electric Motor.

"I contacted Rosback.  They have advised the perforator model is the 
"Twenty-Two Special" from 1963.  It is the knife cut type (not round).  
They sent me a copy of the manual.  If you are interested, I can attach 
copies of the details they sent over. "