The Adams Cottage press was patented by Albert Adams in 1861 and manufactured by Joseph Watson (inventor of the Young America), operating as the Adams Press Company, in New York. The press was advertised as a portable, do-it-yourself press for amateurs and businessmen. The Cottage Press prints from either end, and has a self-acting tympan (the frame that carried the paper to be printed) and an attached inking apparatus was also described in the patent. It was made in five sizes and printed an area from 3″x4″ to 13″x19″. Adams’ presses, like similar small cylinder presses made by Cooley and the Cincinnati Type Foundry, were known as Army presses from their use in the field during the Civil War.
Alan Brignull: The Ajax company, a likely competitor to Adana (see Adana Five-Three), was based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. The Ajax No. 1, the sister of the flatbed pictured, had an even smaller chase size than the No.2: 5 1/2 x 3 1/8″. There were also two sizes of platen presses in the Ajax line, similar in appearance to the Adana Eight-Five. Called Ajax Minor and Ajax Major, respectively, they had interesting parallel-approach platen mechanisms.
The cast-iron Adana was first manufactured in England around 1933 by Donald A. Aspinall, of Twickenham, England. Pictured is the third and latest variant of the Eight-Five series which, according to its owner, may be the most common tabletop press in Britain, akin to the Excelsior series in America (see Excelsior Model P). In 1922, Aspinall manufactured his very first press in a rented stable loft in Twickenham, perhaps with some sense of urgency. James Moran writes, “Aspinall, who had been working in a firm selling racing tips by mail, found himself out of a job, and conceived the idea of making model printing presses.” Persuaded by his landlord to advertise the press in the Model Engineer, a hobby magazine, he did, and subsequently “buyers sent money to a man who had made a prototype only. He was so worried that he reported the matter to the police, and asked what he should do. The reply was blunt: ‘Make the presses.'” Aspinall’s prototype was a version of the Parlour press, a popular hand-inking lever press sold in Britain. To what was basically a platen hinged on a wooden box, Aspinall added a simple means to achieve automatic inking, consisting of a roller pushed over an ink disc by the closing of the platen. When the platen was opened, the roller was pulled over the type in the box. This was the earliest Adana, a distant relative of the rather standard press pictured.
There is some confusion about the origin of the name Adana. See the Adana Five-Three for details. Alan Brugnull said, “The Eight-Five must be the commonest tabletop press in British workshops and just about every letterpress printer knows them. The chase is 8 x 5 inches (hence the name) and they were first made in 1953 (though they had similar looking presses before that). There have been three variants in the design, and this is the latest, which I believe is still available new (though I don’t think they’re still being made, they must have some in the warehouse).”
The immediate postwar period saw the launch of the very last Adana flatbed, The Horizontal Quarto, a superb machine much used by art colleges and producers of short-run fine printing. Adana initially offered two versions of the press, the first having a fixed ink plate and the second a revolving ink disc. The fixed plate machine was phased out after 1957. The platen was modified around 1959 to achieve more even pressure but the basic mechanism had remained virtually unchanged from the launch of its ancestor, the Model 1A, in 1927. (Bob Richardson, The Adana Connection) More information about Donald Aspinall and his Adana presses can be found on the Adana Eight-Five page.
