This fragment was discovered after removing the old packing on the tympan of the Kelmscott/Goudy Albion Press.

The Kelmscott/Goudy Albion press arrived at RIT on January 13, 2014. It had been expertly packed and carefully shipped 300 miles from Manhattan to Rochester, making what would hopefully be its last long-distance journey. The press has received a warm welcome at the Cary Graphic Arts Collection, with classes, friends, and reporters visiting to catch a glimpse of the famous machine, even while still disassembled. We custodians of the K/G Press are thrilled with the reception and are enjoying sharing the press’ remarkable history.  Since January we have been taking our own scholarly journey, learning every bit we can about the restoration, use, and care of such a machine as we prepare it for the next phase of its life.  

Seeking to preserve the K/G press as a working machine while also preserving its historical nature, we have been considering carefully the minutiae of the wear of various metals, fastidiously marking every bolt and its location as it is removed, weighing the pros and cons of paint and rust stripping. Our decisions are benefiting greatly from the generous consultation a wonderful group of experts in all things about iron hand presses. In short, the reassembly of the Kelmscott/Goudy Albion is taking longer than we had expected in order to get it to be the working dynamo it had once been! So a dedication, once planned for April 2014, will now be postponed until October 2014, coinciding with the 45th anniversary exhibition of the Cary Collection at RIT. What better way to fête this press, as one of the Cary’s greatest acquisitions, a culmination of decades of collecting?

Follow the progress we are making on the Kelmscott/Goudy Press through the Cary’s Facebook posts.

Steven Galbraith and Amelia Hugill-Fontanel

RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection