Alois Auer web presses 1860
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Detail map of Innere Stadt, Wien, Wien, Austria Overview map of Innere Stadt, Wien, Wien, Austria

A: Innere Stadt, Wien, Wien, Austria

At the Vienna Staatsdruckerei, One of the World's Greatest Printing Facilities, Alois Auer Introduces Self-Feeding Printing Machines

9/8/1855 to 6/9/1860
Article on Vienna Staatsdrukerei in L'Illustration
Creative Commons LicenseJeremy Norman Collection of Images - Creative Commons
Judges from the design of the engraving presses in the lowest image, the bank notes were printed under very high pressure.
On September 8, 1855 L'Illustration, Journal Universel published on p. 173 an article describing the state printing facility in Vienna directed by Alois Auer.  Images showed their type foundry and stereotype foundry, their state of the art press room, and perhaps more unusually, their facility for printing bank notes for the Austrian government. Notably these were all printed by hand from engraved plates.

On June 9, 1860 the Illustrirte Zeitung published an article on the new high speed self-feeding web presses that Alois Auer introduced at the Staatsdruckerei in Vienna. In the image of the new, expanded machine room at the foot of the page we see the new presses on the left and the older models that required hand-feeding on the right. All the presses were belt-driven by a steam engine in floor below.

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