The Kelsey Company of Meriden, Connecticut - makers of the Excelsior Table Top Printing Press

The Kelsey Company manufactured the Excelsior Press for about 100 years (1873 through 1994) with minor changes. Since it was the inspiration for my print shop name, I have kept my original 3x5 and have collected a few more over the years. They have come from garages, basements and print shops. As we encounter duplicates - as well as broken presses and parts, we will be offering Kelsey Presses & re-constituted starter kits for sale from this web site as well.

1929-1930 Kelsey Catalog Cover

Kelsey Company Sign - Paul Aken, Rich Polinski, Sarah Smith

Paul Aken of Chicago is the now proud owner of the original Kelsey Company sign, bought at auction in 2009. The sign visited with us for a while after the auction, but is now posted in Paul's letterpress musem in Chicago.

here, Rich Polinski (Front Room Press), Paul Aken (Letterpress Museum) and Sara Smith (Smith Letterpress) pose at The Excelsior Press with this classic sign.

(see blogpost for March 15, 2009)

Pete Wilson worked at the Kelsey Company from 1972-1979, making presses, casting type and organizing the production process. He visited our collection in October of 2009 and gave us some advice on how to fabricate the replacement parts needed by a new crop of Kelsey press printers.

(see blog entry for October 25, 2009)

A Message Received from former Kelsey Company Employee Eric Batty
December, 2009

Eric Batty was hired by Glover Snow to work for the Kelsey Company after serving in the Navy during WWII.

At about the same time, Gene Mosher joined the company as Glover Snow's assistant, but would succeed Mr. Snow as manager and later own the Kelsey Company. He continues to support our efforts here at the Excelsior Press Museum Print Shop to this day. (August, 2010)

in his own words:

"I was born in 1927 and when quite young acquired a Kelsey Press. I did tickets and invitations, etc. I also worked in a print shop in Massachusetts. After a stint in the Navy during World War II I came back to Mass. The woolen mills started to move south and there was an employment problem.

One Monday morning in 1948 I drove to Meriden, Connecticut and applied for a job at Kelsey. This was the time when Mr. Glover Snow was the head man and Gene Mosher was his assistant. By 10:00 a.m. I had a job in the print shop. The only employee in the shop was a man named Steve.

My reason for writing this is to tell just how ethical this company was. When they sent out samples that they said were printed on a 3 x 5 press...they were. I know because I printed them and all the other sizes also.

We had a saw that we used to cut down leads and slugs for sale in the catalog. One of the most ethical thing that they did was to have Steve price the items for the catalog. He would be given the price that they paid for it and just add their standard mark-up. If they got a good buy, so did the customer.

We also had two Mehile V36's. These were used to print the catalog and other items such as letterheads and envelopes. By the way, the catalog was all hand set. I know that elsewhere in the building they had a Monotype Caster to make their New England Type. I don't know who ran it but there were two ladies who packaged the type and split the American Type Foundry fonts into smaller packages.

All in all my length of stay at Kelsey taught me to become a very ethical person. "

Eric Batty
Summerfield, FL
December, 2009

Kelsey Company Ad- archived by David Rose

The Ad that launched a thousand print shops -

from David Rose' Introduction to Letterpress Printing

Watch for notes from my "Conversations with Gene Mosher - 2010" - coming soon.