With a target of $5,000 to decommission and transport the 1939 Heidelberg Zylinder Automat from the Don Dorrigo Gazette newspaper, 575km to the Penrith Museum of Print, it is gratifying that 30% - AUD$1,500 - has already been raised in just 5 days. 'we have had donations from $5 to $250' says a spokesman 'and every one will receive a handsome certificate of appreciation once the press is restored and working again.'
This is how the Zylinder Automat would have looked when new - magnificent engineering
People are asking 'Why is this press so important?' While its full history is still being researched, it is well known that, since 1970, it has printed Australia's last surviving all-letterpress/hot metal newspeper in the town of Dorrigo, NSW. The English family had published this local Gazette for 113 years with the last owner, Mick English, reluctantly closing is in June due to health issues and a declining circulation.
Mick has made it available to the Print Museum but Dorrigo is 575km away and it need specialist transport and re-commissioning, costing at leasy $5,000. The Museum is volunteer-run and a not-for-profit, so this represents a fair chunk of its treasury.
We can now reveal that, prior to Mick's Father John English installing the cylinder press in 1970, it had been operating since 1954 at Port Pirie, South Australia at a company named Automatic Printing, owner Albert Harold May. It was imported from Germany by long-term Heidelberg agent Seligson & Clare. 
Automatic Print today - still in Pirie!
Amazingly, May's grandaughter, Robyn, still runs the bisiness which today does mainly digital print and textile printing such as T-shirts and uniforms. She recalled "I remember my Grandad running that press on Simpson Street, not far from where we are now. I was a little girl, so memories are a bit vague."
The arrival of the automated press made news in SA, with the Port Pirie Recorder of July 12th 1954 reporting:
