Hohner Model D
I recently had a Hohner Model D passed on to me ( http://letterpresscommons.com/press/hohner-model-d ), this press has some upside, like the single casting, but on the downside this is an incredibly unwieldy press. Even though I’m not trying to sell this at the present moment, I’ve had some offers to buy it… Does anyone have any idea what this press might be worth? Any info would be appreciated
have you inked it up? how does she print?
I have this same press. I have no idea of its current value but to me, it is the last piece of letterpress equipment I would part with regardless of how much money was thrown at me. It runs as smoothly as an (old) Singer sewing machine and takes little effort to operate. The rails are also adjustable.
The one major design drawback is the way the ink rollers have to mount. The bottom roller has its own pair of spring -loaded slide rods. However, the top pair of spring-loaded slide rods have a pivoting saddle which holds the two upper rollers. The top roller’s use is to pick up and distribute ink from the fountain. This press also came in a motorized model so in that case this feature would probably be most often used. If, however, you do not want to utilize the fountain you can not simply remove the top roller. If you do, the saddles do not act as they should and the one remaining roller has no tension on it and the saddles will pivot and jam. I first started using this press with the bottom roller only since I was printing small items but two rollers provide much better ink coverage so I made new saddles to hold the two form inking rollers and attached them to the bottom slide rods.
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