Welcome to the Backyard, Gordon!

In July we shutdown our studio for a little hiatus. We traveled back to our home town, Toronto, enjoy in the festivities of a sister's wedding and to generally hangout and reminisce with some of our close friends. While in Toronto though, we came across a letterpress auction, selling a variety of letterpress goods, including vintage presses. We came across this lovely GP Gordon, and thought "what they hey, let's throw out a bid and see what happens". Well, needless to say, we won!

The press was actually located in Ohio, and we corresponded with the owner who said he would crate, package and ship the press to us once we were back in Saskatoon for what seemed like a too good to be true price. When we arrive back to the "city of bridges", we tidied up the studio and made some space for our new baby, just in time to have the press arrive at our door. We were elated to see the delivery truck, grinning ear to ear just to take a peek at our new purchase. When the driver opened the rear door though, our smiling face quickly turned to looks of concern. The press was shipped strapped on top of two broken, rickety-old palettes. Garbage bags were wrapped around the top of the press, adhered with what could only be described as wishes and hopes. No string. No wires. Not even tape!! We were dumbfounded that it made it this far!! Luckily we had a skilled delivery driver. He slowly maneuvered those rickety palettes with keen precision, and although the flywheel fell off during the unloading - likely the result of not being firmly attached or supported by the structurally sound garbage bag barrier - the press made it successfully into the studio with a few hardy grunts and pushes.

This beauty will need a little restoration before it can be used, but it sure is going to be a show piece when it's done. We are trying to do a little research into this GP Gordon Press in preparation for its restoration, and will be posting about it in up coming weeks, as the little tidbits we found out about this press are quite interesting. In the meantime, here's a couple pictures of our newest old press. Welcome to the Backyard Gordon!