This press was manufactured by Stephen Ruggles, an early inventor in the field of platen presses. The card press was a smaller companion to the Ruggles job press that had been designed specifically to print business cards and small labels. The printer operated it manually, with a hand crank. Like the job press, it would drop the printed cards into a box beneath the press instead of requiring the printer to stick their hand into the press to remove the final product. The inking process that Ruggles designed is once again rather distinctive– the rollers rise up-and-down, which is standard for platen presses, but the ink plate moves from side to side instead of staying in place. 

Director Mark Barbour acquired this rare press from an equipment dealer on the east coast, who had simply listed it as a 5 x7” press. It took several years of negotiation for its previous owner to part with it.