About us

After the sale of their first endeavor, Cliff and Judy Hix started First Edition in 1991. Staying in the screen printing industry, they decided to make the switch from building screen printing equipment to specializing in custom and stock screen printed heat transfers.

As the business grew, the need to increase capacity became vitally important. In 1998, Cliff invented and built a fully automatic 7-color transfer printer and followed that up with a replicated 5-color model 16 years later. These two pieces of production equipment were and still remain one-of-a-kind in the transfer printing industry and continue to allow First Edition to offer some of the industry’s best heat transfers at competitive prices.

In 2005, Cliff continued his ingenuity by designing and building a heat transfer press known as “The Splitter”. This industry revolutionizing piece of equipment allowed a garment to be split over the lower platen for printing. This design and the robustness of our machines makes them the “German Tanks” of the heat press industry and allows us to proudly state that we are one of the few manufacturers of heat presses that is 100% made in the USA.

Current owners, Joel and Ami VanBecelaere, acquired First Editon from the Hix’s in 2023. It is their motivation to continue the values and principles set forth. We believe that our employees are our family, our customers are our friends and disappointing either would be a distortion of those traits. Because of this, all of us at First Edition strive every day to meet our customers needs and to do that with honesty, integrity and respect.

We want to thank you for your trust in First Edition and we look forward to serving you in the future!