The Hei­del­berg Plat­en press became the main­stay of UK job­bing let­ter­press print­ing and many machines see ser­vice today work­ing on jobs that litho or dig­i­tal machines sim­ply can­not do: odd shapes of stock; num­ber­ing; creas­ing and per­fo­rat­ing, for exam­ple.

It’s usu­al­ly the Hei­del­berg Plat­en press­es that are work­ing in the UK, but Hei­del­berg also pro­duced very high qual­i­ty cylin­der machines.

The firm was estab­lished in 1850 tak­ing the name Hei­del­berg in 1905.  While pro­duc­tion ceased dur­ing World War II, by 1957 pub­lic­i­ty said machines were made at “…the most mod­ern plant oper­a­tion in the print­ing machin­ery indus­try through­out the world.” In 1962 the firm made it’s first litho machines.  By 1958 the firm claimed 58,000 machines had been made.

The machine guide includes sec­tions on full colour print­ing — pre­ci­sion of Hei­del­berg machine is leg­endary pro­vid­ed they have been looked after.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW66IfpJaWI&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]