Quoting from S. Muthiah's piece in The Hindu: http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/01/01/stories/13011282.htm Monday, January 01, 2001 The U.S. 'eagle' in Madras I HAD gone to Dwaraknath Reddy's house to see a collection of rare maps of India, dating from 1711 and into the early 19th Century, but what brought me up short, even before a glimpse of his magnificent collection, was an eagle. An American eagle, perched on an iron bar. It was the iron-cast symbol of what was popularly called the 'Eagle press', a renowned early 19th Century printing press. The last time I had seen one of these printing presses was in the Diocesan Press in Vepery in the Seventies. That printing unit, the oldest printing press in continuous existence in the country, is now back to an old name, the CLS Press, but is much smaller than what it used to be when it was the city's leading and biggest printing press. During its truncation and modernisation, out, no doubt, went its 'Eagle press'. Whether what, polished and gleaming, now graces a corner by the entrance to Reddy's home is the same press or not, Reddy does not know. He, an avid collector, bought it from a city antique shop! Reddy's 'Eagle press' is labelled in raised letters just below the eagle, V. & J. Figgins 1871 Columbian Press No. 2748 Ray Street, Farringdon Road London Generically called the Columbian press, the 'Eagle press' has been described in these words, "Of all the nineteenth-century iron hand-presses, the Columbian is not only the most memorable by virtue of its striking appearance, but was the first to be manufactured in great numbers and by a wide variety of firms for a hundred years". The press was invented by George Clymer of Philadelphia over a period from 1800 to 1812 and he, "taking advantage of the development in iron-casting techniques, chose to indulge in an orgy of symbolic decoration on his press". No other press in the 19th Century world stood up to the Columbian's ornamental richness. Neither the press I saw years ago in Vepery nor the unit I saw at Reddy's, certainly in a handsome state, had the ornamentation of Clymer's early presses, ornate though they were. The American Eagle remained, but it no longer "grasped in its talons Jove's thunderbolts, the olive branch of Peace and cornucopia of Plenty, all handsomely bronzed and gilt". Nevertheless, it was a printing press whose visual appearance would stop anyone in his tracks. Clymer moved to London and patented his press in 1817. He then began manufacture of the Columbian, selling one size for £ 100 and a bigger size for £ 4125. The press remained in production for almost the next hundred years, over two dozen British manufacturers making the machine once the patent expired in 1867. One of the new manufacturers was Vincent Figgins, whose work still has a place in Madras. But after Clymer died in 1834, the ornamentation gradually decreased, as Figgins' creation shows. Nevertheless, any 'Eagle press' must cost a pretty penny as an antique. ==================== ----- Harshawardhan_Bosham Nimkhedkar Nagpur, India