Mystery Machine

[Dave Hughes]

Just a bit of fun here.

Can you name this mystery machine?

No prizes!

[Jeff Zilles [jeffo]]

 I love this stuff !!

It's a Stencil Duplicator - In this case a sort of rotary screen printing machine. They came in several guises as flatbeds, cylinders and travelling belt machines and lived in offices, schoolteacher resource rooms and underground newsletter establishments with a couple of their close cousins, the spirit duplicator and the superior Letterpress jigger - the Multigraph - in the days before the advent of and the general acceptance of the photocopier.

This example may or may not be a Gestetner or a Rex Rotary from the 1920's - 30's at a guess.

I think there is a device similar to this one in the 'Cave' somewhere which runs to a tent shaped metal cover to protect the works when the apparatus was not in use.  I will dig it out for comparison's sake and to try to establish a label.  There are lugs on the baseboard of the pictured example for probably such a lid.

We had a lot of this great aged stuff back in the bad old days of Dave's Wonderful Lino Forum and later the early Metaltypes before the hackers moved in and caused the loss of a large amount of beautiful and interesting research by a lot of beautiful and interesting people.

I was able to air my view which was sometimes right and frequently wrong  - which is good in itself because this can make other people feel better.

Thank you David

jeffo

[Dave Hughes]

Close Jeff.

But I still haven't heard what I've got written on the card!

[rag451]

Golly, that's a neat lookin' contraption. In my highly uneducated, sophisticated ignorance I must wonder if it is a forerunner to the modern lottery ball spinner. Can't wait to hear what it is!

[Mechanic]

Is it by any chance a Neostyle Rotary Duplicator?

With some directional help from my wife, no she's not that old, I knew where to look. Office equipment.

[Dave Hughes]

Yes, you've got it George. I'd have been more impressed if you'd mentioned the Model 8F - but I think you can be forgiven for overlooking that small detail! 

I'm researching another one.

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