The Power of the Press

Toronto has an incredibly rich history of print and publishing. The landscape of the industry is vastly different now, than it was in the heyday of the printed word, but we assure you: print is definitely NOT dead!

We wouldn't be where we are today without the support of veteran press people, printers, and suppliers. Our fleet of equipment comes from shops all over the GTA and we would be remiss to not mention names whose legacy we now carry on: General Press, Central Printing, Paris Printing, and of course, Don K Black Linecasting and Letterpress.

At the end of a very, very strange 2020, we were given the rare opportunity to work with Don Black and his team to buy up a significant part of his Heidelberg parts stock, tabletop presses, tabletop foil stamping presses, and many, many, many...many hundreds of pounds of type, in hopes of giving these beautiful things a new lease on life.
Don Black's was, in the words of Kozo Studio's Akemi Nishidera (a fellow presswoman and personal idol), a print candy shop. It was a place to find everything from common bits and pieces to make a pressroom run right, to the most obscure print oddities. Don and his late son Craig left a sizeable imprint on the letterpress community in Toronto and beyond, recognized as heavyweights in the business for decades.

We at Any Key Press have great plans for all the goodies we picked up from Don and hope to do his legacy justice as we restore and revive this fantastic collection of presses.