Don Black (1936 - 2023)

The fact that the companies that had manufactured these presses had long gone out of business, and that tracking down spare parts for 19th-century machinery might be virtually impossible, hadn’t occurred to me until that moment. The realisation prompted me to ask Adams where modern letterpress printers could go to buy equipment, to which he promptly replied: “You go to Don Black.”

Don Black, of Don K. Black Linecasting Services in Scarborough, Ontario, has passed away. In issue no. 186 of Amphora, Lauren Williams wrote about his beginnings and his retirement after nearly 50 years in business.