Printing Museum faces foreclosure (and, hey, why isn't there a "reprographics" museum?)

PROVO, UTAH, April 1, 2011 -- The museum housing the world's most advanced exhibit of the history of printing is facing foreclosure and a lawsuit, and risks losing more than the board members bargained for.

The article I mention above appeared on the web-site of “The Daily Herald” (at www.heraldextra.com).

Sad situation. A printing museum facing foreclosure! Let’s hope that someone comes to the rescue.

Which brings to mind the question, why isn’t there a museum for the reprographics industry? I guess our industry is too small for that. But, if there was a reprographics museum, what equipment should be in that museum?

My picks would include:

Ø A “Pease” blueprint machine.

Ø A Bruning Star Revolute diazo machine (one with a beautiful polished wood feedboard!)

Ø A Xerox 914 copier.

Ø A “Photostat” camera (forerunner of “the copier”).

Ø A 24 foot long Brown Admiral engineering-photo camera.

Ø Three Dupont photo-lab processors: Cronalar, Cronaflex and Crovex.

Ø A Xerox 1860 wide-format engineering copier.

Ø A Xerox 2510 wide-format copier.

Ø A pin-bar, with Jack Cushing’s name engraved on it.

Ø An RH fixed-focus engineering camera.

Ø An OCE 9800, plotter-printer-copier-scanner system (“a repro shop in one box”)

Ø An early-stage pen-plotter.

Ø An HP DesignJet ink-jet plotter (earliest model that offered b/w and color)

Ø A “Peep-Squirrel” binding-strip maker.

Ø A “Roll-Vac” vacuum frame.

Ø A Cactus “full-color” photo-realistic, wide-format printing system.

Ø A Canon “Bubble-Jet” large-format color copier.

Ø A flat-bed printing frame and “roll-out-the-window” track (showing how large-format prints were made by rolling flat-bed frames “out the window”), around the turn of the century (1900).

Your picks?