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THIS PAGE IS A WORK-IN-PROGRESS PLEASE COME BACK LATER TO SEE UPDATES 10/21/2020 10/27/20 12/2/20 Houston Print Museum ~ Prickly Pear Press
Kelsey
didn't make all of their own presses.
The Excelsiors, yes. But they also
dabbled in other presses for a while.
Among those are the Kelsey Star and
the Kelsey King Jobber. Heck, they
even sold a newspaper press at one
time. We can't say for certain that
Kelsey actually made these presses in
their Meriden, CT plant, but they
certainly did sell them.
According to Elizabeth Harris' "Personal Impressions", based upon notes of Glover Snow, Kelsey offered the King in 1911 - ten years after they introduced the "Star" press (likely also a Prouty design) in 1901. We don't have a lot of history about either of these models, but we do have a Star and will soon have a King Jobber as well. Below are photos of the press we recently purchased. The King Jobber is very rare. We are only aware of three throughout the entire letterpress community. There may be more. When we find them, we will update this page. Click on any
image for more detail
And here it is - some of the answers to our questions. Thanks to Harold Sterne who included the image below in his classic reference work "Catalogue of 19th Century Printing Presses" published in 1978 The Kelsey King Jobber was designed by Prouty and sold by Kelsey (possibly others as well). The chase size is 9 x 12 1/2" (inner dimenions) our best guess is that this advert was "printed on a King" sometime around 1911. When new, it sold for $300. There is more to learn - about the King Jobber, about Mr. Prouty - who may also have designed the Kelsey Star press*. As we learn more, we will update this page. 
click
on any photo for a close-up view
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