Source: www.ebay.com Epic Rare Books and Collectibles (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Wanted: Dennis the Menace. The other fonts are Antique Tuscan Condensed and Akzidenz-Grotesk Bold.

Hank Ketcham’s Dennis the Menace made its debut as a daily syndicated newspaper comic strip on March 12, 1951. It has subsequently been published in comic book form by various publishers, including Standard/Pines (1953–58), Fawcett Comics (1958–80, and Marvel Comics (1981–82).

Shown here are covers for the mass market paperback collections by Fawcett Crest, published in their Crest Book and Fawcett Gold Medal imprints. The main title is set in Filmotype Accent. Volume titles and secondary text use a variety of typefaces. More often than not, the former is added in the form of hand-lettering.

Source: www.ebay.com Lost Cellar Found (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

In This Corner… Small text is in Venus Extended.

Source: www.ebay.com Tom Ray’s Pop-Culture Roadshow (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Make-Believe Angel. The volume title appears to be lettering. At the very bottom, News Gothic Bold.

Source: www.ebay.com Spook’s Monster Mayhem y Mas (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Rides Again. Accent is here used for the whole tite and for the author’s name.

Source: www.ebay.com Tom Ray’s Pop-Culture Roadshow (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

…Teacher’s Threat

Source: www.ebay.com CarolinasTrader (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Household Hurricane

Source: www.ebay.com SattyFamilyCards (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

…Who Me?

Source: www.ebay.com CollectiblesAgain (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Ambassador of Mischief, featuring all-caps Dom.

Source: www.ebay.com MCL’S Closet Treasures (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Everybody’s Little Helper, again with Dom

Source: www.ebay.com OnTimeBooks (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Dennis the Menace and Poor Ol’ Mr. Wilson

Source: www.ebay.com Tom Ray’s Pop-Culture Roadshow (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Surprise Package

Source: www.ebay.com Shy Girl Thrifts (dited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Short ’n Snappy

Source: www.ebay.com Tom Ray’s Pop-Culture Roadshow (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Dennis the Menace and his Girls

Source: www.ebay.com Tom Ray’s Pop-Culture Roadshow (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

Perpetual Motion

Source: www.ebay.com Iris of Versi (edited). License: All Rights Reserved.

…Here Comes Trouble

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

All-American Kid

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Alan Mays and tagged with “belgian”, “broadgauge”, “glyptic shaded”, “old style extended”, “fashion”, “cloister”, and “french clarendon shaded”. License: All Rights Reserved.

This is a nineteenth-century advertising trade card for John P. Schaum, gas fitter and plumber, whose business was located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The other side of the card features an illustration with a rabbit and flowers.

Chandeliers, Coal Oil Lamps, and Gas Fixtures.
Stoves, Heaters, and Ranges.
Gas Fitting and Plumbing.
John P. Schaum,
No. 24 South Queen Street, Lancaster, Pa.

The featured typefaces include Belgian (Bruce, 1867) and Fashion (Farmer, 1876). Most of the typefaces come from the catalog of MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in Philadelphia. This includes Broadgauge (a foundry version of a design previously seen in wood as Antique Tuscan Extended, 1869) French Clarendon Shaded (1871), Cloister (1873), Glyptic Shaded, Caxtonian (both 1878), and Kitcat (1883). The grot on the back is a version of a design that was known in Germany as Moderne Steinschrift.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Alan Mays and tagged with “fashion”, “kitcat”, “caxtonian” and “french clarendon shaded”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Columbia Records, also known as CBS Records outside the US, had a special affinity for Nesbitt’s Gothic and put it to work across different genres and artists, from rock, to pop, to country, on seemingly dozens of releases during the 1960s.

Here, the 1966 Marty Robbins album The Drifter – subtitled on the back as “Great Adventure Songs of the Gunfighter” – proudly displays one of Columbia’s most frequently called upon fonts.

[More info on Discogs]

Harmony Records HS-11350, “a product of Columbia Records”

A phototype adaptation of Nesbitt’s Gothic of 1837 seems to have been a go-to font for Columbia Records during their 1960s heyday – you’ll find plenty of uses, from Dylan to the Byrds to Jeff Beck as you flip through used record stores.

According to Wikipedia, Columbia revived the name Harmony Records as an imprint of budget-priced record albums and compilations – which ultimately proved so popular they acquired and reissued records from other companies, including Warner Bros. and Reprise.

This album, Christmas with the Everly Brothers, was previously issued by Warner Bros. as WS 1483 in 1962, with fanciful circus-style type. For the Columbia-Harmony reissue shown here, it used their trusty Gothic.

[More info on Discogs]

This album with music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and performed by German lutenist Walter Gerwig was released on Nonesuch Records in 1966. The cover design is by William S. Harvey, with art by Donald Leake.

Phanitalian Ornamented No 2 was first shown by wood type manufacturer William Hamilton Page in 1879, more than a century after Bach had lived. Still, Harvey deemed the Tuscan with its bulbous terminals baroque enough to be used for the composer’s name. Its mid-stem decoration was a tad too much, though: the designer simplified the letterforms by cutting away the lateral knobs. The only letters to keep their decoration are those where the “rivet heads” connect to a structural element on the other side of the stem, see B E H. In the process, Harvey also made the letters a little wider.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail of Phanitalian Ornamented No 2, widened and minus the mid-stem ornamentation. Compare to the unmodified letterforms in Solotype’s phototype version, Bohemia.

Burlesque is our collective name for a design that goes back to the first half of the 19th century. The contoured all-caps trifurcated Tuscan was shown by foundries in England, the USA, and Germany. Its earliest known appearance found by type historian Nicolete Gray is in 1843 by Figgins and Caslon. Anna Conroy thinks it may have originated in France. In addition to metal type, it was also produced in wood: Wells & Webb showed it in 1849.

The version used on the cover of Sammi Smith’s 1972 album is MP 321 by Headliners, a phototype adaptation of old type in the Morgan Press Collection. The script used for the title is neo-Sonora, another Headliners release.

Cover design by Pinwheel Studios, established 1970 in Nashville, Tennessee, by Herb Burnette, with photography by John Donegan.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail: Burlesque is printed with yellow letters and a pink contour.

Somewhere My Love (1966), additionally featuring Akzidenz-Grotesk [More info on Discogs]

Ray Conniff (1916–2002) started The Singers in 1959. The vocal group comprised twelve women and thirteen men. In the second half of the 1960s and in the early 1970s, several of the easy listening albums released with Columbia Records came with a cover featuring West Behemoth for the name of the bandleader and arranger, always accompanied by a photo of a smiling woman, typically taken by Frank Bez. See more examples on Discogs.

This Is My Song And Other Great Hits (1967) ft. News Gothic Bold for the title. The sticker highlighting the inclusion of “Born Free” is set in Gothic (Nesbitt). [More info on Discogs]

Hawaiian Album (1967) with the title in caps from Helvetica Black [More info on Discogs]

Honey (1968) [More info on Discogs]

Ray Conniff’s Greatest Hits (1968). The use of West Behemoth here extends to the full title. [More info on Discogs]

I Love How You Love Me (1969) ft. Egyptienne Bold Extended for the title [More info on Discogs]

We’ve Only Just Begun (1970). This photo isn’t by Bez, but credited to Guy Webster. [More info on Discogs]

With terminals as sharp as fangs, Gothic Tuscan Pointed was a natural choice for the title of Basil Copper’s popular study of vampires. First published in hardback by Robert Hale in 1973, this is Corgi’s paperback edition from 1975. The specific font in use likely is the phototype adaption made by Headliners as part of the Morgan Press Collection, which includes a lowercase. The descender in p apparently was cut short to avoid spacing issues.

One of the oldest and most terrible superstitions is that of the vampire. This blood-curdling legend of the undead has fascinated millions throughout the centuries, and today it is still a powerful myth … or is it? What is a vampire? Have they ever existed? And, if not, how has their dreadful reputation become so well established?

[More info on ISFDB]

The typography of the title page is carried over from the first edition by Robert Hale & Co., featuring Cloister Black – with appropriately bat-shaped top serifs in V – and Futura. The Shakespeare motto is added in Plantin.

Plantin is also used for the interior typography, with headings in Cloister Black.

The teaser quote on the back cover is set in the underused fett weight of Trump-Mediäval, digitally available as Bitstream’s Kuenstler 480 Black. The synopsis is in Rockwell.

Hip Hug-Her is a 1967 album by Booker T. & the M.G.’s, released on Stax Records. The instrumental soul album includes the title track “Hip Hug-Her”, which became a Top 40 hit, along with covers like Groovin’ and Sunny.

The cover was designed by Loring Eutemey with the album title set in Antique.

[More Info on Discogs]

King Solomon is an album by Solomon Burke, released in 1968 on Atlantic Records. The album continued Burke’s run as one of the premier voices in soul music, blending gospel, rhythm & blues, and deep southern soul. It features standout tracks like “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to Be Free)”, “It’s Just a Matter of Time”, “Party People”, and “Keep a Light in the Window”.

The cover was designed by Loring Eutemey. It features Baby Teeth for the album title, supported by what appears to be Antique for the heading text.

[More info on Discogs]

Groovin’ with the Soulful Strings, Cadet LPS-796, 1967. Photography by Don S. Bronstein. [More info on Discogs]

From Wikipedia:

The Soulful Strings were an American soul-jazz instrumental group formed in Chicago in 1966. Predominantly a studio band, the project was created and led by Richard Evans, a staff producer and musical arranger with the Chess Records subsidiary Cadet Records. […] Between 1966 and 1971, the Soulful Strings released six studio albums, all recorded at Chess’s Ter Mar Studios, and one live album.

With the excption of the 1966 debut, Paint It Black, and the last album from 1970, The Soulful Strings Play Gamble-Huff, all albums feature Bulletin Script Two for the cover typography in one form or another. The left-leaning, bottom-heavy script is used in all caps, with various amounts of stretching. In most cases, the secondary typeface is News Gothic (see the captions for exceptions). Jerry Griffith is credited with the design of all shown covers.

Another Exposure, Cadet LPS-805, 1968. Photography by Ruyell Ho. [More info on Discogs]

The Magic of Christmas, Cadet LPS-814, 1968. Photography by Ray Klein. [More info on Discogs] The song names are set in News Gothic Extended.

The Soulful Strings in Concert, Cadet LPS-820, 1969. Photography by Jerry Griffith. [More info on Discogs] The small type again uses News Gothic Extended.

String Fever, Cadet LPS-834, 1969. Photography by Jerry Griffith. [More info on Discogs] The second line (in purple) is in Mercator Cursief, the italic style of Mercator. Amsterdam Continental integrated this typeface into the Standard series – the export name of Akzidenz-Grotesk – and sold it in the US as Standard Italic. See this post on FontID.co for more information.

Front cover ft. Gothic

Released in 1977, Bumps & Bruises is an album by R&B musician Joe Tex (1935–1982). It features his last major hit, “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More”.

Photos by Al Clayton. The cover design is uncredited.

[More info on Discogs]

Back cover with the song names in Franklin Gothic

Front cover for the Dutch single release of “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” from 1977 ft. Futura Extra Bold Condensed on an angle [More info on Discogs]

The back cover advertises the album using Aachen.

Front cover for the German single release of “Ain’t Gonna Bump No More” from 1977 ft. ITC Avant Garde Gothic Condensed on an angle. The artist’s name is lettering. [More info on Discogs]

The left-leaning, bottom-heavy and descenderless face on this sleeve for a 1968 single by Sandy Posey (b. 1944) is Bulletin Script Two. Or probably Bazaar, which is the name used by Lettergraphics for their 1960s phototype adaptation. Printed by Ludwig Fr. Noltemeyer, Braunschweig.

Record collector Klaus Hiltscher comments:

She is a year younger than me. I really loved her voice. Even in this new times today I think every hit of her is a nice, good arranged and good composed song. I wonder that in Germany they released every single of her, as usual over here in nice pic sleeves!

[More info on Discogs]

Death and the Joyful Woman was written by Edith Pargeter (1913–1995) under her pen name Ellis Peters and earned her the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Shown here is the dust jacket for the first American edition, published in Doubleday’s Crime Club imprint in 1961.

The uncredited design features lettering, not typography. However, the word “Death” is patterned after a typographic style. Characterized by terminals in the shape of bracketed diamonds with elongated vertical spurs, it was first shown as wood type by William H. Page & Co in 1859 [RRK]. Names used by the various manufacturers include Gothic Tuscan Pointed and Antique Tuscan No 10.

A similar design was shown as foundry type by White in c.1858 and later, in 1867, by Farmer as Five Line Pica Ornamented No. 1. In 1964, Headliners presented a phototype adaptation named W 145, made as part of the Morgan Press Collection. Joe Redick’s digital interpretation Ironwood (Adobe, 1990) is caps only. The Fontry’s Iron Horse (2008) offers a lowercase.

Five Line Pica Ornamented No. 1 as shown by Farmer, Little & Co. in their 1867 specimen. The a in this version is pretty close to the jacket lettering; the e has a horizontal middle part. The lettering artist apparently took a shortcut and used an upside-down a.

From Wikipedia:

Bravo! Brubeck! is a 1967 live album by Dave Brubeck and his quartet, recorded during their tour of Mexico. The quartet were augmented by Chamin Correa on guitar, and the bongo and conga player Salvatore Agueros. It was released in 1967.

No designer credited. Chances are it’s John Berg who was art director at Columbia Records at the time and who frequently specified Nesbitt’s Gothic. The cover photography is by Don Hunstein / Columbia Records Photo Studio. See also the cover of the stereo release.

The lack of overshoot – see the short O, C, U – can be traced back to the original wood type. The tight line spacing could have been accomplished with wood type, too: wooden sorts typically didn’t have built-in vertical spacing, certainly not in display sizes. The overlapping RA pair, however, indicates that this is a phototype version. One such adaptation was named Winchester, which had a different exclamation mark.

[More info on Discogs]

The full Alphabet of Birds

An Alphabet of Birds is a vintage book published by Lippincott, Grambo, & Co., Philadelphia, in 1854. 163 years later, in 2017, Kent Henderson transformed a worn copy into something new and spectacular: for his Alphabet of Birds, he sliced and diced the pages, and overprinted the engravings with a single red letter. Henderson then pasted the 26 pages plus text clippings and the title onto a wood panel measuring 40×30 inches. The result is a unique artwork that appeals to bird lovers and typophiles alike. It was recently sold in a fundraiser for Chicago Art Department.

The original book from 1854 was set in one of the generic romans often named Modern or Scotch. All other fonts used for this piece come from the wood type collection at Depression Press Mfg. & Ink, Inc., a letterpress studio in Chicago, operated by Henderson together with Dud Lawson. The title is set in Clarendon Extended, with Aldine Expanded used for “of”. Henderson didn’t really intend this to be a type specimen piece at the time it was made. That’s why he didn’t document what typefaces he was pulling. Nevertheless he was able to identify most of the wood type used for the alphabet pages, and kindly shared this info:

A for Albatross — an unidentified bifurcated Tuscan, 12 line [see comments]
B for Bustard — possibly Hamilton No. 258, 24 line. Source: Hamilton’s Wood Type, Catalog No 14 (1899)
C for Condor — Grecian, 15 line (by Cooley), via Printing Museum
D for Dove — Balloon, 12 line (by American Wood Type Mfg. Co.), via Printing Museum
E for Eagle — Ancient Gothic, 6 line, via RRK Collection
F for Fly Catcher — possibly Hamilton No. 234, 15 line. Source: Hamilton’s Wood Type, Catalog No 14 (1899)
G for Grouse — see C
H for Heron — Cooper Black, 15 line, via Printing Museum
I for Ibis — see F
J for Jager — Aldine, 12 line, via RRK Collection
K for Kite — Shadow, 12 line (by American Wood Type Mfg. Co.; currently cut by Virgin Wood Type). Better known under the name used by Ludlow for the metal version, Umbra.
L for Lyryrus — unknown Gothic Condensed, 30 line
M for Magpie — No. 500, 15 line (by Page), via RRK Collection
N for Nightingale — De Vinne, 12 line, via RRK Collection
O for Owl — Antique Tuscan, 24 line (no mark), via RRK Collection
P for Partridge — see E
Q for Qua Bird — see F
R for Rice-Bird — see D
S for Spoonbill — see H
T for Tufted Titmouse — see B
U for Upupa — No. 560, 24 line (Hamilton)
V for Vulture — Goudy Extra Bold, 12 line (Hamilton)
W for Waxen-Wing — Antique Tuscan No. 9, 20 line (Page & Co stamp), via RRK Collection
X for Xanthornus — Cheltenham Outline, 6 line (no mark)
Y for Yellow Legs — French Clarendon, 12 line, via RRK Collection
Z [no Z bird] — see O

To marvel at all pages in detail, head over to the Flickr account of Depression Press.

The title is set in Clarendon Extended, 5 line (no mark), via RRK Collection. “Of” is in Aldine Expanded.

Computer-Aided Design? Condor, Albatross, Dove!

The source material: a battered copy of An Alphabet of Birds, 1854, 5×6 inches

“Heron: a gloomy and solitary bird.”

“Kite: they have been observed in great numbers, in Florida.”

The engravings are signed with two names, Croome (William Croome), and “J. Green…” (?).

The business card of Sylvester A. Mitchell (1828–1915), who was a mica miner and farmer in Alstead, New Hampshire.

S. A. Mitchell,
Miner of & Dealer in Mica,
Alstead, New Hampshire

The first two lines appear to be set in two widths of a Celtic. “MICA” is in caps from Antique Tuscan Extended. The place name combines Antique Extended (light) (precursor of Hellenic Wide) with what looks like a less wide variant of the big type, that is Antique Tuscan (see also Antique Pointed).

The card is undated. Judging from the typefaces and Mitchell’s life span, it might be from the 1870s or 1880s.

Greatest Hits is the first greatest hits compilation album by hard rock band Aerosmith. It was released by Columbia Records on November 11, 1980 – about thirteen years prior to their hits “Cryin’”, “Amazing”, “Crazy”, and “Livin’ On The Edge”, and eighteen years before the band’s first and only number 1 single, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”, was a thing.

The red cover features the band’s iconic winged A logo. Based on an earlier version drawn by the band’s former guitarist and founding member Raymond Tabano in 1974, it first appeared in this form around 1976. The title at the top is set in caps from Antique Tuscan Extended. Design concept by Janet Perr, cover design by John Berg.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail

Antique Tuscan Open, also known as Yukon and Assay Rimmed, on the sleeve for the German release of “Long May You Run”. The single was taken from the album of the same title. Released in 1976 on Reprise Records, it’s the sole studio album by the Stills–Young Band, a collaboration between Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

[More info on Discogs]

Twenty years later, the contoured typeface featured on the cover of Beck’s Odelay. In 2022, Beck covered one of Neil Young’s songs, “Old Man”. Much to the chagrin of Young, who takes a firmly anti-sponsorship stance, it was used in an NFL ad.

Three Worlds; or, Plan of Redemption (a.k.a. Three Worlds, and the Harvest of This World) was the first book written by Charles Taze Russell co-authored with Nelson Barbour in 1877

Charles Taze Russell later had doctrinal disagreements with Barbour and started his own magazine, Zion’s Watch Tower and Herald of Christ’s Presence, known today as The Watchtower, the main magazine of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the most translated magazine ever.

The cover typography appears to use a Gothic Tuscan Condensed (a.k.a. Tuscan Gothic), set on a curve, combined with a face similar to Antique Tuscan Condensed (a.k.a. Tuscan Antique), used in caps with small caps.

Detail of the cover typography

“The Harvest of This World” uses Ionic Compressed as shown by the Farmer foundry in 1867. The text set in all caps with tapered centring is a Modern/Scotch. “N. H. Barbour” is Antique Extended (light).

Preface and contents, with more Modern/Scotch and headings in a wide variant of Celtic