ADANA TP48
Adana was the “English” equivalent of the United States’ Kelsey & Co. The company made a name for itself by selling small presses to hobby printers. It was started by Donald Aspinall in the 1920s, while he was recovering from his service in World War I. Adana had its origins as a hobby itself. Aspinall designed wooden flatbed presses in his spare time and was so overwhelmed with positive responses that he started the Adana Agency.
Adana’s history was full of rises and falls. Aspinall’s success ran out by the late 1930s due to the Great Depression and the onset of World War II. Occasional collaborator Fredrick Ayers bought out the company for very little in 1940. In 1946, when materials like metal were no longer being rationed, Adana was able to successfully relaunch. It produced an array of presses until the 1980s, when new advances in printing technology pushed it off the market. This wasn’t the end for Adana though. A wave of fledgling hobby printers arose in the 2000s and, under new ownership yet again, Adana produced new 85C model platen presses, which are still on the market today.
The Adana in the Museum’s collection is a TP48. The “TP” refers to the treadle power by which the press is operated and “48” is the year the press was first sold– that is, in 1948. The TP48 has a very distinctive design. Most notably, it features 360-degree rollers. This is an odd choice considering up and down rollers were the industry standard by the time the press was marketed. Adana revived this design over a hundred years after one of the first platen presses, the Ruggles Job Press, introduced 360-degree rollers.
This press was discovered by a Canadian museum volunteer in a Convent in Duncan, BC where it had been used by nuns for decades. Accompanying type from the press indicates it is from "St. Clare's Monastery 2050 Haultain Street." Ironically, the serial number on this particular press is 666.
