LA Printers Fair

It’s October. . . and we’re westward bound once again to Carson, CA for the 2023 edition of the International Printing Museum’s Annual Printing Fair. Dates for the event are Saturday, October 21st and Sunday, October 22nd - both days 10 am to 4 pm. As in years past, our location is in one corner under the tent in the parking lot, near the stockade fence and benches where all our pizza boxes get lined up.

(1) Preparations begIn about three weeks prior to the event and we start with an empty crate, lots of small boxes and larger cartons.

(2) All sorts of letterpress stuff — type, icons, wood type, plates, tools, supplies, books, ephemera, and more — get boxed, put into cartons for added protection and placed in the crate.

(3) The top goes on and, this year, after a dozen+ securely wrapped open cases of our metal fonts are stacked on top. Wrapped with corrugated, tightly banded and completely encased with shrink wrap, it’s ready to travel.

(4) The final step—call the carrier, load it and watch it pull away for its 3,000-mile journey west. Next time we’ll see it is in the parking lot at the Museum in California.

And that’s when preparation 2.0 occurs. It all comes out, cartons and boxes opened, contents removed and organized on brightly covered tables. Friday night the 20th we hunker down for a good night’s sleep ‘cuz, come Saturday morning, the letterpress community shows up in droves!

If you’re in the region, hope you can come by and renew old friendships. Or if we’ve communicated by email, phone or texts, it’s always nice to meet face-to-face. Looking forward to being there!

John B - JoAnn - Johnny B - Mar