Press items at estate sale
My name is Nancy & I live in Oregon. I heard about briarpress.org as a place to get help about letterpress issues, so I am here trying to learn something. I am employed to sell an estate that includes many letterpress items. My goal is to find a useful place for these items (not recycling!) and to make some money for the estate. I have found 2 Chandler & Price presses (12x18 electric, & 8x11 Oldstyle) with chases & rollers, a Line O Scribe proofing press, many unnamed trays of metal type, some wood type, trays labelled Stymie, Swing, Caslon, Cursive, Line Script, Old English, Spire, & 20th Century, some very attractive small images, borders & alphaets, and various other items. I need to know if any of this stuff is valuable and/or sellable. (I have photos, & a more detailed list of items available.) If so, I will be able to inform my client and proceed with the next step. Thank you in advance for your help!! - Nancy
Sure, it’s all useful for folks like us and worth some money. Probably on the order of a couple of thousand total, perhaps a bit more.
The presses would be the big ticket items. The wood type is nice, the metal type maybe less so, unless you’ve got significant quantities of a font (say 20 pounds or more).
You didn’t mention any, but a lot of assorted other gear is worth money: typecase cabinets, furniture racks, reglet cabinets, paper cutters, etc.
Good luck!
Photos would help. People on this site would love to know more about what you have to sell.
I’m so glad to get some feedback here! There are some type trays that have got to be more than 20 lbs — I can hardly lift them! And I do have lots of photos so I will post them here. But can I put stuff up for sale if I have no idea what it is worth? How does that work on this site?
Thanks again - Nancy
State you’re open to offers, leave it a few weeks to gauge what people are willing to part with then accept or decline. Look on ebay to completed listings for similar items. In my experience which isn’t much, the larger the type the more its worth, especially wood. A tray of wooden large type sells for over £100, minimum, in the UK, sometimes 2,3 hundred. If selling as lots then don’t overload the lot as might put some people off, having to transport etc, maybe a few cabinets of type with a press would be best.
Please PLEASE do not break up sets of fonts! It breaks my heart to see these amazing sets sold off piece by piece like terrible butchering :( Complete sets are so much more useful to print with and would be less headache to store/sell than bits n pieces because a printer will snatch up the whole lot!
Thanks to you great folks here I have made some very useful contacts and so will be following up next week. I appreciate all your advice! - Nancy
Good point about not breaking sets. My collection would make Frankenstein blush.
nancyg24 - We try to stick to the focus of each section of Briar Press in order to make the site easier to navigate and easier to find the appropriate information. If you are going to take offers and sell your equipment, the ad is more appropriate in the Classifieds and you will reach a broader audience in that section. You can also post photos with the ad. Read the eligibility guidelines in the Classified submission form.
Thanks for your help in saving this nice collection.
Thank you Elizabeth — yes, I understand that I will need to place ads for the actual sales of the items, and I plan to do so as soon as I can get the info that I need. Currently I am grateful for the assistance here with general information — I am not a printer & am only now learning about this stuff, so I have needed help with terminology, & various members have assisted me thru email. You have a great community here & I apologize if I have been out of line in any way. Thanks again - Nancy