DEMM - or Daldi e Matteucci  - is an Italian company best known for its gear-making machines (hence its gear-tooth logo) that had its origins in 1919 when Giacomo Daldi and Luigi Matteucci opened their first machine tool factory. At first, various machine tools were offered, including a number of gear-cutting machines and lathes. By the end of WW2, the company's factory in Porretta Term had been completely destroyed by bombing - though by 1947, had been rebuilt with production of lathes and gear machines underway. In the early post-WW2 years and right into the 1950s, there was grave shortage of machine tools with consequently very long waiting lists. To meet this demand, DEMM produced a number of well-built but entirely conventional geared-head lathes including the TP-120, the very similar TS-120 and the "Copymatic 120", a version equipped with hydraulic copying.
With a centre height of 120 mm (just short of 5 inches) and taking around 24 inches between centres, the DEMM TP-120 was a compact, heavily-built, all-geared head industrial-class machine. With its robust construction, clutched drive to the spindle, a full Norton-type quick-change screwcutting gearbox, power sliding and surfacing feeds, gap bed, mount for a rear toolpost and electrical control by the "third-rod" system, the specification made it an attractive proposition. Though few examples can have made it to the UK, the specification must have been sound enough for an agent to organise a batch in the full knowledge that immediate delivery was something that few equipment-starved engineering companies and repair workshops could resist.