The Man Who Printed Books at the YMCA              7

shows another side of Fass. He may have been shy, but he was cer¬
tainly not humorless. The text reads:

Notice. Sorry, we have no type, which makes mass produc¬
tion impossible. Just how we function is a mystery to us.
Apology. We forgot to mention that the type used herein
Avas borrowed; yea, practically stolen, though not generally
known.

This booklet was laboriously printed l)\' Iiand on a miniature
wooden press, built by one on relief, w ithoiit paw The paper
is handmade, and was not chiseled.. . .
Aftermath. When going to press we discovered a shortage
of rollers—in fact, none—so we printed tills booklet without
any.

In addition to the text there are thirteen pages of ornaments, and
the title and colophon pages, printed in red and black. At least two
copies, presently in the collections of Herman Cohen and Stuart
B. Schimmel, were specially bound by John Archer, one in full
calf, the other in full morocco. These contain four additional
leaves, six mounted photographs by Fass of the two presses on the
first six pages, and a note on the Press by John Archer describing
the two presses and advising that "This book was printed on Press
No. 2, the forms being inked with the tip of the finger."

The demise of the Harbor Press* in 1939 coincided with the
waning of the golden age of fine printing in America, at least in
terms of commercial profit, and Fass again found employment as a
typographic adviser in the advertising field. But in 1950 the urge
to be his own master, to experiment with design without the struc¬
tures of business obligations, sent him once more to miniature
presswork, and the Hammer Creek Press was the result.

This time he bought a press, a 1905 Hughes & Kimber which
Valenti Angelo had acquired only the year before from Bruce
Rogers. It was one of two imported from London by Rogers.

*A press of the same name was established by Frank D'Arconte in 1957, and is
the printer of Cohnnb'm Libiwy Cohniws.