sparklythings

I have wanted a gocco for about three years now. I lusted after the gocco prints on etsy and dreamed of mass producing my own wedding invitations. Living in the apartment as we were, without a shred of spare horizontal space, I knew it would be a wasted purchase. “When we get a house,” I reasoned to myself, “then it’ll be time. I’ll get my gocco!”

So I dutifully kept tabs on savegocco.com (now defunct) and cheered when Paper Source began to sell them in the US. I waited, we bought the house, and I waited some more. “Christmas,” I said. “Christmas is when I’ll get my gocco.”

Well here it is Christmas and hey, looks like I waited too long. I discovered last night that Paper Source doesn’t sell them any more. Why? Because they’re not being made. Ever. At all. That’s it. Done. Finished. I’m still trying to figure out the rumor mill in the Flickr groups but it sounds like after next month they’re not making supplies any more, either. It seems that producing the bulbs is the big issue, and maybe there will be an electronic replacement for either the bulb part or possibly the entire machine – but either one would take years (and probably a better global economic climate, i’m sure.)

Depressing as it is, I know if I was completely obsessed then I’d try to pick up a used machine and join the fray of people stockpiling supplies.  It’s still pretty durned expensive for an obsolete technology,though. And if I were double extra serious about getting into the Hallmark biz, I’d consider real screen printing or even letterpress. There’s so many amazing letterpress goodies on etsy – how bad could that setup be?

Even though I’ve learned my lesson about waiting from the gocco, the answer is still “way too much for me right now” – from the homemade press to the incredible artistry of the professional. Letterpress is still amazing to look at, though. What a wonderful change from the desktop world that i’ve fully grown accustomed to. I got a little nutty looking at some of the vintage print supplies on eBay. Seller letterpreservation239 has set after set of type…i’ve always been a copperplate girl, myself:

And some of the old graphics and words are a hoot. I wonder what this could have been used for? (seller brucels2000)

No gocco, no miniature pony…it’s going to be a blue Christmas this year for me…

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 am and is filed under eBay, for print, rave. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.