I was contacted by someone with a couple of presses he wants to find new homes. One is a Hacker. I haven’t seen it yet, but he said it was missing some parts and sent a few photos. There are 3 rollers that need to be recovered, but probably no other parts of the ink train remain. From the scanned brochure I found on this site, it appears there should be a couple of rider rollers and an ink drum, not sure if the details varied over time. See the photo below. I think it shows the framework where the additional pieces would be attached. Can anyone advise me on what would be needed to restore the ink train, and how difficult that might be. Otherwise, it could be a nice manual proof press, inked with a brayer, but we already have a similar size Potter proof press at the museum print shop where this would go. I am told that the press turns over easily, so that should not be an issue.
A different picture of the second one
Matt,
Thanks for posting this press. Hopefully there is a serial number on there and we can add it to the census. Fritz has the Hacker archives and can get more history with the serial number.
The problem with Hackers is that there are so few left and the #4’s morphed over the years. Not all Hacker#4’s are the same. One thing that changed is the inking system. The one in the catalog looks different, it has square bases that the inking posts sit in. The one you picture is the round variation. Although I have not seen all 13 known hackers (I only have pictures of 8), there exists two with the 3 roller round variation. I do not know if these inking systems are complete.
One 3 roller variation is owned by vanderblog user: Jonathan Finegold
The other was a post on Briarpress a long time ago, I don’t know who owns it.