By: Nick Howard | Date: Dec 2020 | Contact the Author
Ira Washington Rubel was a born salesman; he could spot a winner with just a glance. Having passed the bar in Chicago, Rubel ran his own print shop in Nutley, NJ. The business was booming, and Rubel ran several Direct Rotary Litho presses, which used zinc litho plates directly transferred to paper. Rubel also owned a small paper mill producing cheap sulfate paper used to gang-run bank deposit slips on large sheets, thereby destroying the competition. One day a sheet was miss-fed, and to everyone’s surprise, the wrong-reading image had transferred to the cylinder tympan with more superb quality than printing directly to paper.
This would become the Eureka! moment that would change everything. Rubel studied the tympan in greater detail, and as if he was looking through the form, he realized something magical just happened. Rubel knew what he needed to do: design a new printing press using a new technique with three rotary cylinders. The year was 1904.
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A Chance Encounter No one ever said business is fair; it never was, and never will be. The best and worst of our humanity often surfaces under the guise of “doing business.” It was during the wild days of the 1880s in Chicago that a 23-year-old finished his apprenticeship and graduated to the rank of pressman at the famous Poole Brothers Printing Company. More »» |

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Fire and Brimstonet As a kid, I found attending
church dull, other than
one particular Thanksgiving
Sunday service observing
a mouse ravaging a
display of gourds, corn and pumpkins
while our Pastor bellowed away. Besides
sheer boredom, I often recall a great deal
of clergy finger-pointing with dire warnings
of eternal damnation. Hey! I was just
a kid, innocent to the world’s darker side;
let me grow up first. More »» |

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Robert Miehle's Stroke of Genius No one ever said business is fair; it never was, and never will be. The best and worst of our humanity often surfaces under the guise of “doing business.” It was during the wild days of the 1880s in Chicago that a 23-year-old finished his apprenticeship and graduated to the rank of pressman at the famous Poole Brothers Printing Company. More »» |

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2020's Best Press? For well over 40 years, I have only used one brand of paint spray gun. Sure, I did drift once and tried a Binks, but I always returned to my DeVilbiss JGA. It so happens I still have that original gun. I love my DeVilbiss. Why, you may wonder? I don’t have an entirely rational reason other than during thick and thin, with some jobs being more than challenging, my JGA has never let me down. More »» |

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Not Everything Turns To Gold This past March, amid a worldwide pandemic, news from the world’s largest printing press manufacturer may have caught some in the industry by surprise. Heidelberg’s much-touted collaboration with Fujifilm, developing the world’s first inkjet 40-inch press, was ending. Adding to the astounding news, Heidelberg would also cease producing their VLF (very large format) presses. More »» |

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Fasten Your Seatbelt This past March, amid a worldwide pandemic, news from the world’s largest printing press manufacturer may have caught some in the industry by surprise. Heidelberg’s much-touted collaboration with Fujifilm, developing the world’s first inkjet 40-inch press, was ending. Adding to the astounding news, Heidelberg would also cease producing their VLF (very large format) presses. More »» |

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Operation Bernhard The Nazis counterfeited the most circulated British £5 note to use the fake money to finance German intelligence operations. S.S. officer Arthur Nebe had a devious plan. As the head of the Reichskriminalpolizeiamt (central criminal investigation department) in Berlin, the ruthless killer came up with an idea of forging British currency and dropping banknotes all over Britain, courtesy the Luftwaffe. More »»
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