The Liberty Platen Press

Polk's Description

13. Degener's Liberty Press. An interesting job press, called the Liberty, was invented by F. O. Degener, of New York, in 1860. The bottom edges of the platen and bed were hinged together, and they raised and opened out into a horizontal position to receive the sheet, the bed passing under the ink rollers on the way up. The platen and bed then closed for the impression with a hinge-like motion, again inking the form on its downward sweep, and causing the ink disc to pass under the rollers. This was a popular press for a short time because of its power and speed but best results were not possible because of its clam-shell action. It was also called the Noiseless Jobber.

Degener's Liberty Patents

Locations of Surviving Liberty Presses

You can also read detailed reports on the following:

• Federal State Museum of Hesse at Darmstadt, Germany

• Mystic Seaport Museum, Mystic, Connecticut

• Bob Oldham's press in Doswell, Virginia

• History Park at San Jose, California

• First Congregational Church Church of Hyde Park in Boston, Massachusetts

• Tempo Srl, Belluno, Italy

• Herwig Kempenaers' press in Belgium

• Presses seen in various collections during a tour of Low Countries in 2002

• Kner Museum in Gyomaendrõd, Hungary (not a Degener & Weiler Liberty)

How to identify Liberty presses

Letterpress E-Mail Discussion List

Here of my favorites, with links directly into the archives so you can follow the entire thread of related messages. (Because the messages appear exactly as they were written, and cannot be updated, they may contain information or links that have gone out of date.)

• Steve Saxe, Oct 22, 1996: At one point the firm was located in one of the arches of the Brooklyn Bridge, on the Manhattan side. The Liberty was called "half a press when closed, and two presses when open" because of the size when it was opened for feeding.
• Steve Saxe, Oct 30, 1996: There is a Liberty Press at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. There used to be one at Bowne & Co., Stationers, at the South Street Seaport Museum in NYC,
• Steve Saxe, Jul 8, 1997: I have a contemporary (1870s - 1880s) parts diagram of the Liberty press, showing all the parts separately, each one named in English and German.
• Niall Cook, Apr 27, 1999: ... last week I moved a Weiler Liberty Platen about 50 miles from Tunbridge Wells to my home near Canterbury, England. Currently in (very large) pieces in the garage, I just need some time to clean it up and reassemble before being back at full steam.
• J. Mike Powers, Apr 23, 1999: There is one at the Heritage Museum in Libby, Montana. It was donated to our museum by the Museum of the Rockies to keep it from selling and being moved out of state. This press is historically important to Montana, as it may have been the second or third press introduced into Montana.
• Erik Desmyter, Apr 23, 1999: We also have a Weiler Liberty in good & working condition. She is also painted blue with gold lines and has the Berlin / New York engraving. [From Gent, Belgium]
• Steve Saxe, Apr 30, 1999: According to Ralph Green's A History of the Platen Jobber (1953; reprinted by Letpress listmember Hal Sterne, 1981) ... Otto Degener was a German who worked for Gordon, and who procured a patent for his own press, the Liberty. Degener's partner was another German, F. M. Weiler and the firm name was Degener & Weiler. Degener died in 1873 and his son, F. L. Degener succeeded him. Weiler bought out the son in 1877 and continued the business under the name F. M. Weiler.
    About 1881 Weiler established a factory in Berlin, Germany, where the Librety press became popular. The press lost ground in the US, however, and Green says that after 1890 manufacture in this country was discontinued, and all Liberty presses after that date sold in the US came from Germany. Green adds that Liberty presses were still on the market in Germany until about the time of World War I.
• Jim Gard, May 1, 1999: I've just returned from the San Jose Historical Museum this afternoon where we were printing bookmarks on our F. M. Weiler Liberty Press as a demonstration and advertising piece for some 300 special visitors today.
• Bruce Graham, Dec 26, 2000: Call the Cooperstown, NY, Chamber of Commerce to get information about the Farm Museum. They have (or at least had) a Liberty press in their print shop.
• Erik Desmyter, Aug 5, 2001: This seems to be a Liberty platen press on a Bulgarian banknote
• Philip Driscoll, Aug 5, 2001: According to the "Catalog of World Paper Money," the picture is that of Khristo G. Danov ... These notes were issued in 1992.
• Nick Smith, Aug 6, 2001: Khristo Danov lived 1828-1911. He was a teacher & writer, responsible for the re-introduction of printing & publishing into Bulgaria - his first publication was a calendar which appeared in 1855. Whether he ever used a Liberty press seems doubtful - more likely the bank-note designer just chose it as a suitably archaic looking machine.
• Erik Desmyter, Aug 5, 2001: There are a few surviving F.M. Weiler Liberty presses here in Belgium in private collections and museums. Our own F.M. Weiler Liberty (serial number 12274) is deep dark blue with gold lines (on nearly all cast iron parts) and has the original ink fountain.
    Another F.M. Weiler Liberty press no.11883 also has the ink fountain and the owner informed me recently he thinks of selling this press.
• Erik Desmyter, Nov 24, 2001: I have tried to bring together the info we gathered together in the past years from different sources about the history of the Liberty press. (Excellent summary!)
• John Cornelisse, Dec 14, 2003: Somewhere near Antwerp, an old printer has a "small" liberty-press on the attic, and this press is gonna be a part of the exhibition in the MIAT-museum in Gent.
• Ted Shuart, Oct 22, 2004: I would like to add The Farmers' Museum's Liberty to the list. The press has a brass plate with the inscription "Liberty No. 2 Patented Apr. 24, 1860 by Fred Otto Degener NY". ... It is a dandy press and I use it for daily production running at least 40,000 copies a year on it.
• Erik Desmyter, Oct 24, 2004: I visited Barbara Henry at Bowne about 2 years ago and then the Liberty was dismantled in storage since a long time.
• Erik Desmyter, Nov 1, 2004: Liberty Machine Works sold also some other presses than the Liberty.
• Marc Cote, Nov 21, 2004: I have been asked by a church in Boston to sell a letterpress... I believe that the press has been there since the erection of the church... The press was used for baptismal certificates, church circulars and the like.
• Bob Oldham, May 19, 2005: Ad Lib Press has just acquired Liberty platen job press #6706, a model 2A (9x13) made by Degener & Weiler probably between 1874 and 1877.

Scans from a Dutch Textbook

press closed

John Cornelisse, who lives in The Netherlands, provided scans from a Dutch book used in graphics schools. It contains technical drawings of all kinds of presses. The publication information for the book is: VOLCKE, J.A.: Boekdrukmachines. Amsterdam, De Arbeiderspers, 1946. Gebonden. 110 p. Ills. Voor de Stichting Graphilec. Click to see a full-sized version of the press closed or the press open.

press open

In the same textbook, John found a reference to another manufacturer in Europe who made Liberty presses. John translates the text on the picture as "Liberty-platen made by machine-factory, Joseph Anger and Sons, Vienna, Austria."

Scans of Liberty Advertisements and Articles

• Scans from English language magazines and catalogs covering 1874 - 1890.

• Western European advertisements for Liberty (or Liberty-like) presses scanned by Herwig Kempenaers, a Liberty press owner in Belgium.

• Articles and ads from Hungarian magazines provided by Julianna Füzesné Hudák of the Kner Museum.

Early issues of The Inland Printer

• The manufacturer's name changed from "F. M. Weiler's Liberty Machine Works" to "Liberty Machine Works" around May 1886. They moved from 51 Beckman to 54 Frankfort Street. They were "successors to Degener & Weiler."
• In 1888 they touted advanced features of their redesigned "Noiseless" press. It got rid of six specific problems related to the "old Denger" press.
• Pictures in ads in 1886 and 1887 show the delivery board on the left side of the press. Beginning in 1888 the delivery board is back behind the platen (with a big cut-out for the throw-off) and the feed board is shown as attaching on the right.

Liberty Sightings on the Internet

• The Briar Press on-line museum includes an entry for the Liberty.

• Erik Desmyter of Gent, Belgium, has a number of presses, including a Liberty manufactures about 1880. His Web site might contain some Liberty pictures, although he changes the content from time to time.

• Another Belgian, Herwig Kempenaers, created a Web site to displays his printing equipment. One of the pages, Historische Drukkerij, includes a picture of his Liberty. Beginning in spring 2005, the collection is open for viewing by the public.

• A Liberty press is featured in the History San José print shop at History Park in San Jose, California.

• A Liberty is on display at the Museum for the Printing Arts in Leipzig, Germany.

• It looks like there's a Liberty press at an Erfurter museum in Germany. I don't know German, but on a previous version of the site, the "Benary-Speicher" link brought up a picture of a Liberty press. "Druckereimuseum und Schaudepot der Museen der Stadt Erfurt im Benary-Speicher des Sparkassen Finanzzentrums, Brühler Straße 37, 99084 Erfurt."

• The site for another German museum, Hessisches LandesMuseum Darmstadt, previously showed a Liberty press.

• The Kner Printing Industry Museum in Hungary has a permanent exhibition, Books from the Gyomai Kner Press, which includes a Liberty-style press manufactured by J. Anger & sons.

• The New Zealand Electronic Text Centre scanned the December 27, 1890, issue of Typo, including an advertisement for the Liberty.

• A German site displaying many pictures of presses includes several related to the Liberty:
  • » Liberty « von F. M. Weiler´s, Berlin (Liberty Machine Works) Platen-press
  • » Liberty 2 « von F. M. Weilers, Liberty Machine Works, Berlin
  • » Liberty 3 « von F. M. Weilers, Liberty Machine Works, Berlin
  • » Tiegeldruckpresse « Tiegeldruckpresse, von J. Anger & Söhne, Wien, Platen press
  • » Splendid « Tiegeldruckpresse Platen-press
  • » Frankonia « von Bohn & Herber, Würzburg

• The Amalgamated Printers' Association Web site reprints "The Liberty: a Study in Exoticia" from the October 1976 issue of Type & Press.

• Each month Bill Elligett writes about a different printing press. In January 2005 he selected Liberty Press

Page created by Dave Tribby
Last modified January 5, 2007