{
  "id": 20077036,
  "title": "The Royal Press presses on after nearly 90 years",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/14/the-royal-press-presses-on-after-nearly-90-years-20077036",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-11-14T23:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Free Malaysia Today",
    "slug": "free-malaysia-today-freemalays",
    "url": "https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/leisure/2026/11/15/the-royal-press-presses-on-after-nearly-90-years"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Ee Soon Wei is preserving his family's letterpress printing legacy by transforming The Royal Press into a museum. The Royal Press, founded in 1938 by his grandfather Ee Lay Swee, has been a family-owned printing house on Jonker Street in Melaka for nearly 90 years. Initially producing calendars, liquor labels, and other items in multiple languages, TRP eventually closed its commercial operations in 2010 due to modernization of the printing industry. Recognizing the potential of the aging presses, Soon Wei converted the space into a museum, funded by a grant and restoration by experts. Today, TRP's collection comprises about 30 machines, including the hand-fed job platen, the earliest printing machine Lay Swee used, which dates back at least a century. Visitors can see over 150,000 letter blocks in various languages, a testament to the labor-intensive craft of setting words by hand. The museum also offers a stamping workshop, where guests can press their own inked wooden blocks onto paper. Soon Wei hopes visitors, especially younger ones, will appreciate the deliberate process printers once used to produce high-quality work, emphasizing that good things take time. The Royal Press is open daily from 10am-8pm, with workshop sessions ending at 5pm. Admission is free, but charges apply to larger groups. For more information, contact The Royal Press on Facebook and Instagram.",
  "summary": "Once a busy polyglot printing house, the Melaka landmark now invites visitors to discover the craft behind the printed word.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}