On Using the Name of a Defunct Private Press
I am curious if there have been historical rules about the names of private presses, and if so, what they are. I am working on a new venture, and am kicking around names. I’ve discovered that many of the names I’d love as a press have already existed, and in some cases multiple times.
What is everyone’s feelings about taking a name for a press that has already been a press?
Well, taking on a used name is fine if nobody remembers the other presses going by that name. If it’s already in the internet-verse, you wouldn’t be helping yourself at all. Anything pre-internet should be safe to use unless it was a very well known press in the past.
Do you mean within the (relatively small) letterpress community, or within the greater general publishing/printing world?
I agree with kccraig. Search for domain names, but strive for unusual words or combinations. I recommend local phrases, landmarks, grandmother’s maiden name, obscure terminology, etc. Or add color, like these well-known imprints, the Golden Cockerel Press, Red Hydra Press, and At the Sign of the Blue-Behinded Ape.
Just an aside: My dear departed friend Ian Leonard Robertson (APA 111), a mentee of Arthur W. Rushmore (The Golden Hind Press, est. 1927), named his imprint the Windover Press in Short Hills, New Jersey, in 1952. Fifteen years later, Kim Meeker founded his Windover Press at the University of Iowa in 1967. Ian said he had written to Meeker but never received a reply. He changed his name to the Slow Loris Press in 1970. The following year, another Slow Loris Press, publisher of a poetry magazine appeared in Buffalo, New York (1971-1984). Ian had good humor about it when I met him in 2007, claiming that as a child, he had been struck by lightning three times.
Bill—I mean within small press, letterpress or otherwise. But this endeavor will specifically about small editions of handmade books.
Paul—thanks for that. I thought to ask when I realized that Sumac Press had already existed, and that two of them were running at the same time. I later found three Arion Press, all in operation in 1974.
I don’t plan on intentionally using a defunct presses name, but It got me thinking—that must happen every once in a while. Thanks for the story.
Private / hobby presses have conventions, and commercial presses have rules. The Liebermans began the register of private press names now hosted by Briarpress, in which there are no duplications. Budd Westreich published a Directory of Private Presses Letterpress, and duplications were rare but not forbidden. My press name was used by a respected press before I was printing, even had a Goudy press mark.
Commercially, Fictitious Business Names (DBAs) are registered at county level for a limited time and need to be republished regularly. My own press name already existed in my city when I was born but lapsed; when I bought from Matz Paper, there was another press with the same name in another county, with occasional confusion. Another has a web presence in specialty publishing.
Arion Press began in 1974 (transitioning from Grabhorn-Hoyem). I worked there from ‘95-‘01, and never heard of another Arion.
I think it should be OK, if the press name did not have a popular reputation like Shooting Star Press or The Alembic Press, and it’s been a significant amount of time since it’s been used.
Shame there isn’t a record of when a press name becomes defunct, then available for reuse with the exception of specials press names that should be retired.
You should probably check to see if the name has been “trademarked” or “copyrighted.” I assume, but don’ t know, that the US Patent Office has a registry. If you know the state where the printer operated, you might check with that state’s Secretary of State to research the status of any incorporated entity. LD
Interesting question.
First, our friend Paul Moxen mistyped or misremembered. The name of Kim Merker’s press was Windhover Press. Moxen dropped the ‘h’ and maybe inadvertently offered a solution: you can reuse a press name by altering the spelling!
Second, I think this is a matter where context is everything. How much time has passed? How far removed are these presses geographically? How different are the output of these two presses? How widely known was the predecessor? How memorable or prosaic is the name? There are many factors to consider.
You might weigh all of these things and decided to repeat a press name, but really, why would you? Is it not better to make some attempt at novelty? Or maybe the opposite — it might be just as smart to be G.F. Schulze & Company. I like a good press name as much as the next guy, but what I like even better is good printing. At the end of the day it’s about the verbs not the nouns.
Mistyped, I did, Varying Hare. (Great name, by the way.) The h was/is indeed in both press names. Thanks for suggestingt that an alternate spelling is a good solution—if not for a previously used imprint, then for settling on a common word to improve the search ranking as many other businesses do. I would add that for publishers, https://worldcat.org/ should be the first place to confirm usage.