[Illustration: GORDON’S FRANKLIN PRESS.]
The invention of machines for printing small work elegantly as well as
swiftly is of vast advantage to the printer, and has greatly increased
the jobbing department of typography. Here, as in other matters, American
ingenuity has taken the lead of all nations; and the presses invented
by Ruggles, Hoe, Gordon, Degener, Wells, and Gally,—not to mention
numerous other inventors,—defy competition. The Ruggles presses formerly
commanded the trade; but the beautiful machines of Geo. P. Gordon, a man
of decided genius, and the presses of other makers above named, have
entirely displaced them. Hoe’s half medium cylinder job press will run
2500 impressions an hour.
[Illustration: NONPAREIL PRESS.]
Gordon’s Firefly press is unique, and requires a so-called endless
card-board, which it prints and cuts of the required shape as it goes,
at the rate of about ten thousand per hour. This is not in general use;
but his eighth medium, quarto medium, and half medium Franklin presses,
have achieved a high reputation for expedition and excellent performance.
Gordon’s Franklin press has been reproduced in Europe under a different
name.
[Illustration: LIBERTY PRESS.]
We here present an engraving of another press which has achieved not a
little reputation. It is called the Liberty press, and is manufactured
by Degener & Weiler, of New York. In sizes as well as in prices, it
corresponds with the Franklin. This press also is manufactured in Europe.
The Nonpareil, the Globe, the Peerless, and the Universal job presses all
have special points which commend them to favour. Indeed, with so many
good machines at the command of the printer, he is without excuse who
does not produce handsome work.
[Illustration: UNIVERSAL PRESS.]
What are called amateur presses may do well enough to amuse the boys of
a family and keep them out of mischief; but when they are employed by
fledgelings in competition with properly trained printers, they become
mere paper-smearers, the work produced on them being simply detestable to
an educated eye.
[Illustration: PEERLESS PRESS.]