It's sad that there were no offset presses at PacPrint 2025 but wait, there WAS heavy metal and how wonderful it was too. Over on the Penrith Museum of Printing stand you could find a stunning example of a mid-1800s Columbian Letterpress - an Arab - with lots of metal type and early copies of 'The Land', 'Sydney Morning Herald' and other newspapers.
Some of the marvellous PMOP volunteers at PacPrint. The Columbian press with Eagle atop , similar to that used to print the Sydney Morning Herald from the 1830s on! It was refurbished by Fairfax apprentices and donated to the Museum by Fairfax Media. Also on display was the facsimile edition of the Gutenberg 42-line Bible, reproduced exactly as Gutenberg printed it in 1455, on a wooden press similar to the Common Press!
Printing Museum volunteer Ralph Bennett with the 1851 Columbian press, similar to the machine that once printed the Sydney Morning Herald
Getting the heavy metal equipment from the Museum to PacPrint and back was a gargantuan effort by the Museum's volunteers. In the foreground is a facsimile recreation of the 'Common Press' similar to what Gutenberg would have used. Not heavy metal but certainly heavy wood!
