Letterpress Things
A unique, engaging Store for letterpress printers with all sorts of type, tools, supplies and more,
located in Holyoke, MA. . . proudly known as the “Paper City”.
And now celebrating 25 years of service to the letterpress community!
A belated Happy New Year!
January 2026 opened quietly and quite relaxed for the Barrett’s. 2025 had successfully
wrapped up a year with several notable milestones. In June, after being closed 18 months,
we reopened in our new Holyoke location. And, in November, we celebrated our
25th Anniversary of working for and with America’s letterpress community!
All was good. . . again. . . finally. Our anticipation ran high!
BUT. . . Mother Nature and ‘germs’ had other plans for us. January promised much activity;
there were three Saturday ‘Open Dates’ during the month! As the month progressed, weather
across the country and locally turned miserable with major storms sweeping West to East, and
temperatures dropping to all-time lows. Here in Western MA, night-time temps consistently
stayed well below zero for weeks on end; day-time temps didn’t rise anywhere close to freezing.
It was flat out cold. . . absolute bone-chilling cold that sapped one’s energy and psyche.
On January 24th/25th, a good ole fashioned Nor’easter swept up the Atlantic coast and locally
dumped 20 plus inches of snow. And that’s when JoAnn and I were both hit with terrible,
terrible colds. . . the tissue-pulling, coughing, body-aching, can’t sleep kind that kept us homebound
for ten days running. Our January 31st Open Date was even cancelled at the last minute. With
car-handle deep snow, Artic cold and our miserable state of mind and body, no way could we
venture out of the house!
Activity at the Store ceased for several weeks; dozens of inquiries, emails, calls and orders piled
up unaddressed. Even attention to the website faltered. We returned this past week to an
administrative mess. . . day-by-day messages are being returned, orders attended to, and the
website again being updated. Still got some correspondence to catch up with; the website still
needs more refreshing. Last Saturday - Valentine’s Day - was a wonderful Open Date; the weather
was great, lots of visitors. Things were good, we felt good. . . like everything was normal again.
Maybe 2026 is now on its way to being a really decent, enjoyable letterpress year after all!
John B / JoAnn
