Rare Book Monthly

Articles - December - 2024 Issue

High Bids Win: Letterpress & Bindery Auction end December 5th, and then 3 more auctions

This sale ends 12-5-24

This sale ends 12-5-24

High Bids Win: Letterpress & Bindery Auction ends December 5th, and then 3 more auctions

 

For most, books start with paper and ink.  But for a special few, they prefer to have the old equipment that was used to create them.  Old presses occasionally come up for sale as well with all their accoutrement. We’re privileged today to talk about a firm that is handling a series of old presses, typesetting, and binding equipment auctions, 4 of them over this and next months, followed by others to be announced this next spring.

 

So I’m introducing High Bids Win, the Ephrata, Pennsylvania auction house who handles both books and the equipment that create them. Their December sale ends quickly – on the 5th, just in time to scratch your printer’s itch before the holidays.

 

When I was a kid in the 1950’s, there were two scents that fired my imagination, Evening in Paris that cost twenty-five cents, and the other was the smell of my family’s press rooms where printer’s ink was for a young man, the caviar of scents.  Even to this day, my olfactory system tingles when walking by a printing plant’s open door.

 

There are two categories of people who may or will respond to this article. Those who have long wanted their own press(es) and, younger folks who have yet felt the emotional embrace of the humming, clicking, banging, and swish, swish, swish of their future dreams.

 

Either way, this December sale may be your peek-a-boo into a world has been slowly disappearing. This equipment will be studied, evaluated, and discussed and ultimately bid-on for those who decide “yeh, I’m up to this.”

 

The extraordinary bookman, Bill Barlow, into his 80’s would draw his hand across his printing equipment and sigh, and exhale those were the days.  If your days are ahead, and are open to be a printer, click into High Bids Win:

 

https://www.highbidswin.com/auctions/detail/bw118487

 

Once you get into this sale be aware there will be 3 more over the next two months.  Then, after a breather, there will be more:

 

Letterpress & Bindery Auction

Letterpress & Bindery Auction

 

 Bookbinding & Letterpress Auction

Bookbinding & Letterpress Auction 

 

 

Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines, Machine Manuals, Auction

Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines, Machine Manuals,  Auction 

 

 

Vintage Leather Tool Auction [Binding Tools]

To take a look click here.

Rare Book Monthly

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