House Industries purchased PLINC’s assets in 2003. They now own the original film negatives and the rights to Caruso Roxy. As for why they didn’t digitize it, I don’t know; that’s a question for House Industries. Maybe they have plans to do so, but haven’t got around to it yet. Or maybe they don’t see enough commercial potential for this kind of retro typeface style to prosper in this age. After all, making a professional digital revival takes time, skill, and effort – it’s an investment that better pay off.

Classroom JNL is similar to Condensed Sans Serifs No. 1, but it’s not based on it. Jeff Levine says the inspiration was “a set of old die-cut cardboard letters and numbers used by teachers directly on bulletin boards or for tracing”.

Knowing the original spelling of its name, I was able to dig a little deeper. Turns out the typeface originated at the Boston-based Typewriter-Type Company as early as 1900. The design was acquired by ATF a few years later. I’ve updated the typeface page.

Here’s an ad from the May 1900 issue of the Inland Printer. The copy suggests that such a ribbon effect was possible already before, but it required extra steps of processing the output:

The 1906 catalog calls this the "True Ribbon Effect".