Ephemera Custom Letterpress -- What is Letterpress?

Letterpress is a 500 year old relief printing technique in which a raised, inked image (or text) meets paper with enough pressure to produce a print. With soft, pillowy printmaking papers, an indentation can also be created, adding a remarkably tactile dimension, which other printing processes cannot duplicate.

Made of cast iron and weighing in
at a whopping 1200 pounds, our
platen press dates from about
1912, and still prints like a charm.
It works via an opening, closing,
clamshell motion, and there is
no motor! Once your project has
been completely set up, we simply
give the flywheel a push to get
things rolling, and then pedal
away on something called a
"treadle." That pedaling motion
controls everything: the image is
inked evenly, the platen opens,
a fresh card is fed in by hand,
the platen closes onto the inked
image, the ink disk rotates, and the
whole process begins again.

(And in case you are wondering,
yes, it's pretty decent exercise!)