My first Van­der­cook proof press in the US is a Uni­ver­sal I, all elec­tric. The press is in our garage here in Belvedere, which was built for the big cars of the 50s. The press was so filthy that I have spent the past two weeks clean­ing it. Now the rust and the grime are gone, as are my fin­ger­nails. The paint is partly gone and the blank metal looks uneven, so I had to sub­mit these pho­tographs to quite a bit of Pho­to­shop treat­ment in order to make them at least look nos­tal­gic, if not tech­ni­cally precise.