Type and Stick at The Hammer Creek Press.

New York: At the Sign of the Turtle, printed by John S. Fass at The Hammer Creek Press, 1951. One of 66 copies, of which 25 were for sale and the rest for private distribution. Turtle device on title page and label on cover by Burt Carnes. Every page with ornaments, illustrations and type printed in red, yellow, blue and black on Whitehead & Alliger’s Arak Paper. Pp.35. 170 x 107 mms., original patterned brown paper wrappers over thin boards with paper label turtle device of the press on the front cover, in the original matching card slipcase. An extremely good copy with the very rare limitation leaf (folded into two and printed on the front only).||A spectacular display of Fass’s decorative designs, printer’s ornaments and gentle humour.
John Strobble Fass (1890-1973) was a graphic designer and printer of fine press books who designed books for the leading American publishers of limited edition books. Early in his career he worked for publishing house of William Rudge where he learned a great deal from Bruce Rogers. In 1925 Fass founded the Harbor Press in New York which specialised in creating fine editioned books. This press closed in 1939 and Fass began printing exquisite books from his single-room home at the Bronx YMCA first under the name Hell-Box Press and later he began the Hammer Creek Press in the 1950s. He used an Albion with an extraordinary provenance. He bought it from Valenti Angelo, who also illustrated a number of Hammer Creek Press titles. Angelo had got the press from Bruce Rogers who in turn had procured it from the great Emery Walker.

Hammer Creek is known for its immaculate masterpieces of letterpress printing in tiny editions. Beautifully conceived and printed, John Fass worked slowly to achieve perfection, hence the turtle press device and his Press motto ‘Festina Lente’ [Hurry slowly]. At this time he also produced a series of leaf prints, printing directly onto Japanese tissue.
|Cohen, 6 With the rare little hand-printed card giving the limitation of the book (66 copies), a previously unknown quantity