Buying a Chandler and Price

I have an opportunity to buy a whole lot of printing equipment but wanted to get an idea of what I should pay. The press is C/P 18x14. I know that isn’t the exact size since I was using a tablet to do the measuring. There is also another C/P in the same deal. It looks pretty rough and probably would be scraped since it has no ink plate, the main shaft is laying to the side. The biggest thing about this offer is that it comes with more printing equipment than I could count. It comes with two Ludlow’s, four large shelves of type. They are about 4 foot tall by probably 10 long. There is also many other items that were sort of laying around that went with the deal. One Item I think was a lead shaver? The problem I have is that the older gentleman who all of the printing equipment belonged to was hard of hearing and some remembering problems. His son who is conducting the sale knows nothing about the items. So I was sort of in the dark about everything being sold. The C/P has been stored in an open barn for several years. It has been covered and the large barn that it has been stored in has a good roof. The one problem is the moving of the press. It is accessible but would still take someone with equipment to move it. All of the items would have to be moved about 75 miles to where I live. Overall the printing operation has about everything that a well equipped printing shop would ever need. Since it has been out of use for some time almost everything needs a good cleaning and some replacement like the rollers -three of them. OK the price he wants for the entire lot and I’m sure I didn’t see it all is $1300.

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to measure the press you measure the inside of the chase, sounds like it might be a 10x15, the press without the disc might have been used for die cutting, maybe the other parts are there somewhere, $1300 sounds like a good price, as long as the stuff isn’t rusted solid. Rollers are easy to get for the c&p presses, the ludlows cast type from brass molds, which should be there somewhere, usually they are in type cabinets with slanted cases, mice love type cases for nesting so as long as you don’t mind mice poop your all set. Try to turn the press over to see if is rusted. All the smaller stuff like the type and tools and quions and furniture would be worth the price . Good Luck Dick G.

That sounds like a good deal to me, too. You may be able to sell off the things you don’t need and come out of it with some great equipment and a net profit. Even if the press is rusted and won’t cycle, it can be loosened up with plenty of Liquid Wrench or Kroil. It just takes time and patience.

Depending on condition and what matrices are with them (which are stored in something the roughly looks like a type cabinet), you could sell the Ludlows and keep the rest. It sounds like a fairly large shop, for which the price sounds right. Not sure where you are, but there may be a more experienced person out there who can ID some of the bits and pieces.
Lead shaver might be a hand mitering machine.

Or, in the Ludlow shop, the lead shaver might be a Supersurfacer, which uses a multiblade cutter to smooth the face of larger slugs.

Thanks for the advice. It is very helpful. The type cabinets for the Ludlow are there plus one more smaller cabinet that is very full of more type. From the advice it sounds like a good purchase.

Thanks again.