Small Business: Back in Print

There's not much that ben webster, a stationery designer in Salt Lake City, Utah, won't do to get his hands on another letterpress machine.

In late 2003, Webster, who produces cards using that traditional process, took possession of letterpress No. 3--he currently owns seven--by dismantling and transporting it piece by piece through a shaft he had dug in a window well. "The owner of the press told me, 'If you can get it out of the basement, it's yours,'" says Webster, 29, who started Seraph Stationery a year and a half ago.

It's notable that letterpresses, weighing up to 2,500 lbs. and made by companies with Old World names like Vandercook, Heidelberg and Chandler & Price, haven't been manufactured for decades. Not surprisingly, printers covet them. That's why a machine in good condition can fetch a high price. A Vandercook might go for as much as $6,000; four years ago, you could have bought one for less than $1,000. "If one machine breaks down, I want to have another one to back it up," says Webster.

Only those antediluvian behemoths can create the signature sculptured, three-dimensional letterpress look of deep impressions made in paper. That's what attracts printers and consumers, says Fritz Klinke, 65, who has spent more than 50 years working in the printing industry. Klinke owns NA Graphics in Silverton, Colo., which sells letterpress-printing supplies and parts.

Klinke is seeing a letterpress renaissance. He estimates that over the past three years, about 500 people have joined the ranks of letterpress printers in the U.S. He has 3,000 customers. Most companies, he says, are one- to three-person outfits, and about 90% post revenues of less than $100,000.

Webster projects that his revenues this year will crack six figures. With two full-time and two part-time employees, he produces stock cards of his own design and wholesales them for $2 apiece (each retails for $4 to $4.50), fills wedding-invitation orders from retailers and does letterpress jobs for other designers. Webster's in it for the long haul. "The final product and the effect are what I'm in love with," he says.

So is Lisa Krowinski, owner of Sapling Press in Pittsburgh, Pa., who became a full-time letterpress operator in early 2004. She loves the instant gratification letterpress printing offers. "When you're done, you have a stack of whatever you've just printed right in front of you," says Krowinski, who owns three letterpresses. She's a one-person shop, dividing her time between turning out her own stock cards, which she wholesales for $2.25, and custom work like wedding invitations and personal stationery. She projects 2006 revenues in the middle five figures.