“Every­one his own print­er” was the phrase used by many, but claimed by the Mod­el Press peo­ple. This small press was nev­er sold just as a toy, or machine for the hob­by­ist, but was mar­ket­ed to appeal to the widest audi­ence.

William Clark and Joshua Daugh­a­day patent­ed the design for the Mod­el Press in the USA in 1874. Car­lo Giuseppe Squin­tani took the British patent out on 10 April 1877 — the Mod­el Press had arrived in the UK.

Squin­tani sold press­es from Sum­mer 1877 — but there’s a ques­tion over whether those first press­es were man­u­fac­tured in the UK or import­ed. By 1888 Squin­tani’s adverts claimed the press­es were made by a high-qual­i­ty engi­neer in Lon­don.  Bob Richard­son has recent­ly dis­cov­ered that the engi­neer was Peter Hook­er Ltd in Waltham­stow.

To ensure widest appeal the press­es were made in a vari­ety of sizes from the No. 0 (with a 2 and one-eighth inch by 3 3/4 inch chase) to the trea­dle-dri­ven No. 6 Job (with a 9″ x 13″ chase). The Amer­i­can and French num­ber­ing sys­tem for mod­el press­es dif­fered from the UK ver­sions. The table below shows the key sizes.

* Weights from John Ryder’s Print­ing for Plea­sure.

W E Cook adver­tised the ​‘Improved Mod­el’ press between 1898 and 1900  in only one size: an 11″ x 5″ trea­dle plat­en.

While the Mod­el Press was sold for near­ly a hun­dred years, the appeal of the Adana seemed to eclipse it despite the Mod­el being a more stur­dy-built press.

In com­mon with Adana, Squin­tani sold com­plete out­fits includ­ing the press, type and ink from their show­rooms in Far­ring­don, Lon­don.