Golding Jobber No 7 Serial Number and Age

This is my first press in which I could print commercial-grade work. It was manufactured around 1923 or 1924, but the records are very sparse and letterpress historians are few and far between to confirm the history of smaller companies like Golding. More widely known for platen presses is the Chandler and Price company and also, Heidelberg.

To get the best approximation I contacted Steve Sax and this was his reply:


I got out the original serial number log book to check. It turns out that the last entry for the Jobber 7 is 3763, with a date around 1917 or 1918. So to get an approximate date we'll have to do some guesswork.

Golding seems to have made roughly 80 Jobber 7's each year. Your serial is about 390 higher than 3763. If we divide 390 presses by 80 presses per year, we get about 5 years' worth. So as a rough guess, I would say that your press was made in about 1923. The company was then owned by American Type Founders.  Production ended in 1927, so you have one of the latest models to be made.

I'm sorry the book doesn't have the exact date, but I think this is a reasonable approximation.