Boxcar Press mourns the sudden loss of our beloved Office Manager and Client Coordinator Carrie Reagan. Her obituary appears here.

Boxcar Press initially hired Carrie as an Administrative Assistant in 2007. She earned a promotion to Office Manager in 2008 and was continuing her advancement this year into a role as a Client Coordinator, managing our custom printing jobs. Her work was exemplary and always in sync with our mission and values at Boxcar Press.

We will always remember the tireless energy that Carrie devoted to her job. She touched many of our customers and vendors through detailed phone support over the past three years. She was conversant in all aspects of our business, and patiently explained ink choices, file formats, paper sizes, press mechanics, everything. Everybody turned to Carrie for an answer, myself included. In addition, Carrie organized many of our environmental and social initiatives, from company-sponsored organic agriculture to employee-powered neighborhood cleanups.

Carrie’s upbeat, positive, constructive personality helped carry our employees through the past three years. We are all grieving her departure. In her memory, we ask that you consider her 4-year old son Eamon. This “little man” (who likewise brought joy to our life over the years visiting our office and printshop) now has suddenly lost both of his parents. Please consider a memorial contribution to the Eamon Willoughby Trust Fund, c/o Geddes Federal Savings & Loan, 2208 W. Genesee Street, Syracuse, NY 13219.

Our deepest sympathy goes out to Carrie’s survivors.

Have a letterpress question you’d like to run past us? Check us out on formspring where Boxcar Press founder Harold Kyle has been answering a number of printing-related questions. Submit your question and he’ll be offering up his insight to help you tackle your letterpress challenge of the moment!

The shop at Boxcar Press was surprised by the appearance of emerging photographer Jasper Kyle when he unexpectedly chased after his father (who needed to visit our Shipping & Receiving area). Once among the busy letterpress presses, he turned to his Fisher Price R7315 which he had previously been using to photograph the hallway ceiling. He first turned his attention to our Heidelberg KSBA, which was in the middle of a 3 color run of 6,000 cards. Bob frames the composition as he measures his press sheet for register.

Then he noticed Carrie pulling some prints on the Vandercook. This setting, as the Vandercook prepares to pull a print, resulted in a dynamic, powerful photograph through the lens of a three year old (below).


Before heading out the door, Jasper specifically requested to photograph a “dirty stinky press,” one “with oil on top.” He showed us what he was talking about: a Heidelberg Windmill. After noticing how dirty each one was, he settled on Bill’s press as the dirtiest—inspiration for another bold composition.


We were honored to be the focus of Jasper Kyle’s recent photo shoot and we hope that you enjoy the artistry of his work. Jasper is available for wedding photography, event photography, printing press photography, ceiling photography, blurry carpet photography, and calligraphy. Please contact Boxcar Press for more information.

There are some exciting changes going on here at the old Boxcar – we’re now offering free shipping and faster service to better serve our platemaking customers. Hooray! And while we’re at it, we’d love to get your feedback! Tell us what you think: take our high tech, 4 minute survey and we’ll happily plant a tree for every survey participant. (Oh and you can now follow Boxcar on Twitter, too!)

Free 2-Day Shipping

Be gone, shipping charges! That’s so 2008. We now offer free 2-day UPS shipping on all domestic platemaking orders over 90 square inches. That’s less than 8.5 x 11, if you don’t have a calculator handy! (View our international or other shipping charges)

One Day Turnaround On All Orders!

One day rushes, get out of here! Our standard turnaround is now one day, which means:

* if you send in your order and your ready-to-go files by 4 p.m. EST, we’ll ship your order on the next business day. (see new turnaround chart here)
* same day turnaround rushes are still available if you submit your files by 1 p.m. EST (see pricing here)
* if your files aren’t ready to go, keep in mind this may delay your ship date (unless you request that we process your plate no matter what seems wrong with the file)

Questions about any of these changes? Let us know and we’re happy to help!

How to Reach Us (it’s easy, trust us!)

(A happy note: we have finally fired our auto-attendant for our phones. You now get to talk to a real live person when you call during our business hours, 9 a.m.to 6 p.m. EST. Hooray!)

Cathy Smith, Customer Accounts Manager
existing orders & ordering questions • pre-press file prep questions
letterpress printing questions • plate problems • troubleshooting • supply needs
cathy@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x12

Anthony Allen, Prepress Manager
file problems on existing orders
anthony@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x13

Julie Salzar-Smith, Admin Assistant
billing questions or concerns
julie@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x14

Kim Stevens, Operations Manager
praise or complaints
kim@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x15

Cyd Converse, Blog Editor
get your print shop profiled on our blog
share good news and printing samples that we’ll post on our blog
cynthia@boxcarpress.com • 315-473-0930 x19

We like planting trees for you.

Remember, for every platemaking order you place over $100, we plant a tree with American Forests. Over its lifetime, each new tree planted will absorb roughly 740 pounds of carbon dioxide. Go trees!

Need coaching, tutoring, or one on one help for preparing your letterpress files?

We’ve been doing prepress for letterpress for a decade now, and we love helping out both new and old printers & designers overcome technical challenges to create the perfect pre-press files. If you’re new to the polymer world, or if you simply hate file prep, give Cathy a shout out (cathy@boxcarpress.com, 315-473-0930 x 12), and we’ll find ways to make the file prep process a breeze for you. (You also might want to take a look at our file prep tips and our FAQ’s on our web site).

We want to hear your thoughts (and we want to plant you a tree too)

We know Boxcar Press wouldn’t exist without you, so we’ll be honest—we love each and every one of you guys. We admire your enthusiasm for letterpress and we share your passion for cool heavy machinery. And we care a whole lot about what you think. We hope that you share your thoughts, great ideas, and disappointments with us whenever you can—but wouldn’t it be fun to also fill out a high-tech survey about how we’re doing? All you need to do is go here by August 8. It’ll take about 4 minutes of your time, and in return, we’ll plant a tree in your honor with American Forests. Thanks!

Get profiled on the Boxcar Blog!

One of our favorite things to do is recognize our platemaking customers and the great letterpress printing they create with our plates. We’d love to profile your print shop and your work on our blog! Drop an email to cynthia@boxcarpress.com if you’re interested, and check out previous customer profiles on our blog here.

At Boxcar, it’s all about letterpress and the printers who love old presses as much as we do…

Boxcar Press began 10 years ago, with a guy named Harold, a polymer washout brush, a tray full of warm water, a dream about an easy-to-use printing base, a few rescued presses, poetry, and a lot of caffeine. When employee #2 (Debbie, Harold’s wife) joined Boxcar in 2000, Harold was still hand processing plates himself in the basement sink of their Syracuse, NY house and keeping track of orders on a white board. There were no order forms (or auto-attendants either!). Our little company has changed a bit since then. We’ve learned a lot. We have order forms now. Our home is now 12,000 square feet of space in an old artist warehouse in Syracuse, New York, and we have a team of employees here that keep your happiness close at heart. We’ve processed tens of thousands of plates for thousands of letterpress shops internationally. We’ve fallen more deeply in love with letterpress and this cool printing community. And we’ve had the amazing experience of helping shops, both large and small, figure out how to get their hulking cast iron presses to print well. But we’re still the same friendly folks at heart who love coffee and who are doing what we do because we love letterpress.