Certificates like this one were issued by the Chinese consulate-general in San Francisco to show that the holder was exempt from the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which banned Chinese laborers from entering the United States. The Chinese exclusion policy remained in effect until it was lifted in 1943.

The heading combines a Celtic with Ronaldson (also used for the word “SEAL” at the bottom left), and the following paragraph combines Title Text Open No. 3 with Spencerian Script. The word “DESCRIPTION” is in Old Style Extended, while the labels for each item are in a Modern/Scotch. The italic at the bottom is in a style that was presented by MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan as a companion to Ronaldson (Old Style, No. 4) as well as to Bradford Old Style (Old Style, No. 2) and Binny (Old Style, No. 3). The Chinese signatures aren’t typographic.

A poem written by Charles Knowles Bolton about a historical figure in Connecticut. The decorations are by Ethel Reed, but the printer or book designer is uncredited. The publisher, Lamson, Wolffe, and Company, wrote the following in their 1896 catalog:

It is printed in a a dark brown ink, in an old style antique type, on heavy, hand-made paper of natural tint, with deckled edges and uncut leaves. The book is appropriately illustrated by Miss Ethel Reed, who has drawn also the title-page and cover designs. […]

“Much of the attraction of Mr. Bolton’s little volume lies in the admirable illustrations and letter-heads by Miss Ethel Reed. These designs are in the ‘poster’ style, and in their cleverly massed effects and bold outline have considerable charm and originality.” — The Literary World.

The design is typical of the Arts & Crafts movement, favoring bold strokes in both artwork and type. Old Style Antique is the US import of Miller & Richard’s Old Style Antique No. 7, a 1850s–60s design that regained popularity in the early 1900s. It was later revised as Bookman.

The main title type is a mystery. It seems to match Boston’s Old Style Antique No. 2, but that W!

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

McNeil Bros. was a San Jose printer specializing in labels. Their 1885 catalog, Specimens of Druggist Labels…, is an explosion of eccentric type and ornament in fancy frames, offering hundreds of examples of artistic printing from the real world. This label combines seven very different display faces. The shaded ornaments pair well with the title type, Italic Copperplate, a design so elaborate it could be mistaken for custom engraving.

Source: archive.org License: All Rights Reserved.

Italic Copperplate shown in MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan’s 1891 catalog.

Most of the type in the McNeil Bros. shop was likely procured from the largest local foundry, Palmer & Rey in San Francisco. The company didn’t originate many (if any) type designs of their own, but they did supply the West Coast with novelties from Cincinnati, New York’s Conner, and Philadelphia’s MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan, all of which are represented on this label.

Source: archive.org License: Public Domain.

Pen Text, as shown in Palmer & Rey’s 1884 catalog (printed the year before the McNeil Bros. book that features the above label). In this copy of the specimen book held at the University of California, someone tried sketching a few characters in the ronde script style.

This “informal profile of the Mississippi” by Ben Lucien Burman (1895–1984) with illustrations by his wife, Alice Caddy (1896–1977), was published by Taplinger in 1973. The center-aligned jacket typography pairs Filmotype Quentin, Americana, and some variant of Phidian.

Title page

Jane Austen’s Emma is a comedy of manners first published in 1815. The cover of Signet’s 1969 edition (CT388) features art by Alex Tsao. The typeface is not quite as old as the novel: it’s the solid style of Herman Ihlenburg’s Treasury, which MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan first cast in 1874.

William H. Moyer, of Pottsville, Pa., received a V.S. (Veterinary Surgeon) degree from the Ontario Veterinary College in Toronto during the commencement held on March 28, 1891, according to a note in the Journal of Comparative Medicine and Veterinary Archives, vol. 12, no. 5, May 1891, pp. 261-64.

Afterwards, he set up a practice in Elizabethville, Pa., as indicated on this business card. Someone penciled in the year “1890” on the front of the card, and the name “J. Romberger” is written on the back.

Dr. W. H. Moyer,
Veterinary Surgeon and Dentist, Elizabethville, Pa.
Graduate of the Ontario Veterinary College, Member of the Veterinary Medical Society, of Toronto, Canada.
Four Year’s Practice with Dr. J. W. Sallade, V.S., of Pottsville, Pa.

The doctor’s name is set in John F. Cumming’s Karnac (Dickinson, 1884). The condensed low-contrast slab for his job description is unidentified – it’s similar to Skeleton. “Elizabethville, Pa.” is in a Gothic, possibly Boston’s. Additional typefaces include (an American version or relative?) of Antique Five, Latin Antique, a light Clarendon/Ionic, and what looks like Antique No. 310, Bruce’s version of Old Style Antique No. 7.

Source: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov US Library of Congress: “Chronicling America”. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: chroniclingamerica.loc.gov US Library of Congress: “Chronicling America”. License: All Rights Reserved.

This ad in The Salt Lake Herald., April 18, 1880, demonstrates the ingenuity of late nineteenth-century typographers. Given the cost of producing and printing engravings, newspaper ads rarely used illustrations at that time. So companies sometimes turned to type to draw attention and express themselves. This layout evokes rug patterns and borders as if seen from overhead in a floor plan, grabbing the eye on an otherwise dense page.

The designer put three very different typeface styles to use: The “Carpets.” at top and bottom appear to match MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan’s four-line pica Gothic, No. 3, a style we list as Grotesque No. 5 / 396–399. (The word at the top may use a C from a different font.) Meanwhile, the light and narrow Condensed No. 3 contrasts nicely with the extra broad and bold Title Extended. All of these typefaces were likely created within a couple decades before this printing. They originated at German or Eastern U.S. foundries and made their way across the country to Salt Lake City in time to show up in service of the Walker Brothers Carpet company.

First released by United Artists Jazz in 1962, this is Solid State’s 1968 reissue of King Pleasure’s Mr. Jazz album, with a more attractive cover, designed by Alex Gnidziejko.

The spectacular three-dimensional typeface is Relievo No. 2, patented by Richard Smith for MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan in 1879. The border elements at the left and right are part of the typeface, too, see them in a period specimen.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail

Source: fontsinuse.com Nick Sherman. License: All Rights Reserved.

Black Sabbath’s first four studio albums – Black Sabbath, Paranoid, Master of Reality, and Vol 4, released in rapid succession between 1970 and 1972 – laid much of the groundwork for the heavy metal movement. While there were other bands playing heavy blues-inspired hard rock at the time, the gloomy, doom-laden stylings of Black Sabbath helped fuel their early success as one of the first – and most influential – heavy metal acts ever.

Sabbath’s dark aesthetic was established from the start with help from the visuals on their records. Their first four albums were released through the Vertigo record label in London and, as such, involved Vertigo’s in-house designer at the time, Keith Stuart Macmillan. Macmillan studied photography at Royal College of Art but has worked in various roles related to the visual side of music – from design to directing music videos. Early in his career he worked under the moniker Marcus Keef (or simply “Keef”) to avoid confusion with photographer Keith Lionel McMillan who likewise worked with rock musicians at the time.

In addition to his stylized photography, Keef also contributed design work to those first four albums, which – along with designs from the Bloomsbury Group – include now-iconic titling graphics. At least for the first two releases, he entrusted a fellow student from the Royal College of Art with the typography: it was Sandy Field who designed the titling for Black Sabbath and Paranoid.

Despite the ubiquity of those albums and the many design imitations they’ve inspired, the sources of their letterforms have been largely undocumented and obscured by the passage of time. Some of the albums’ titling has often, mistakenly, been assumed to be totally hand-lettered. Even when a typeface was suspected as a starting point, exact sources have proven elusive.

This situation is not surprising when you consider those first four Sabbath covers were all designed using uncommon sources from the era of phototype and dry transfer lettering – a relatively short period after the peak of letterpress printing but before the digital revolution. Type styles from larger companies of that era, like Photo-Lettering and Letraset, have been documented fairly well in subsequent years. But there were also smaller companies and publications at the time whose designs are still much less known today, partly because the original reference materials are so scarce.

All four of the first Black Sabbath records got their titling styles from exactly those kinds of niche sources.

Black Sabbath (1970)

Source: fontsinuse.com Neil Priddey. License: All Rights Reserved.

Though it is multiple generations removed, the titling style of the first, self-titled Black Sabbath album has its origins in an ornamented typeface from the Central Type Foundry called Harper, first released in 1882. The curly design was part of a wave of type styles from that era that tried to evoke a sense of exoticism through unusual forms.

Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

1892 Central Type Foundry specimen of Harper.

Source: archive.org Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

1889 Franklin Type Foundry specimen of Harper.

Source: fontsinuse.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Harper Rimmed Initials as shown in the 1897 catalog of Day & Collins, a wood type manufacturer in Fann Street, London.

Harper included a set of outlined or “rimmed” initials which seem to have outlived the core design through adaptation by various other publishers over the years, for various other formats. One such adaptation was for fonts of wood type by the British company Day & Collins, who sold it as Harper Rimmed Initials. This adaptation, in turn, inspired many subsequent interpretations, especially during the era of phototype and dry transfer lettering.

One particular take on that design wasn’t even a proper typeface in the traditional sense, but instead was published as a standalone alphabet in the Twelve Unusual Alphabets Compiled by Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes portfolio (1970). This adaptation of Harper Rimmed Initials appears to be the one used by Field to compose the titling for the cover of Black Sabbath.

Source: www.flickr.com Stephen Coles. License: All Rights Reserved.

Sheet 9 from Twelve Unusual Alphabets Compiled by Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. London: Mears, Caldwell, Hacker, not dated [1970]. This source was originally identified by Patrick Concannon.

Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

A lineage of adaptations of Harper Rimmed, from top to bottom:

1970 Black Sabbath cover detail feat. the Unusual Alphabet #9 by Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes, c.1970.

Harper with rimmed initials by Gustav F. Schroeder for Central Type Foundry, 1882.

Eminence by Photo-Lettering, Inc., 1962.

Manuscript Capitals by Bob Newman for Letraset, 1972.

Fancy Letter by Walter Haettenschweiler. Allegedly from 1957. However, the earliest known showing is in the 5th revised edition of Lettera 2 from 1976.

Abbey Scroll, shown by Formatt in 1974.

Daisy Rimmed, shown by Solotype in 1992.

Coincidentally, the Harper Rimmed Initials seem to have also influenced the design of the logo for Orange amplifiers around the same time. Black Sabbath weren’t regular Orange users but they were famously seen playing them for their 1970 performances on the West German Beat-Club television show.

Source: www.preservationsound.com Preservation Sound. License: All Rights Reserved.

The Orange amplifier logo as seen on an item in their circa 1970 catalog, seemingly based on some adaptation of the Harper typeface.

Source: www.youtube.com Beat-Club. License: All Rights Reserved.

Tony Iommi playing guitar through an Orange amplifier, from the famous Beat-Club performance in 1970.

Paranoid (1971)

Source: fontsinuse.com Heritage Auctions. License: All Rights Reserved.

Following the success of their debut, the pressure was on for Black Sabbath to quickly release a follow-up album. Keef again handled the photography and design. The photography for the cover was prepared with the idea that the album would be titled War Pigs (after the song), however the title was changed to Paranoid at the last minute and the short turnaround meant there was no time to prepare new photography, resulting in an unintended mismatch of imagery and text. Despite this mix-up, the album was a hit, furthering Sabbath’s heavy metal influence.

As with the first album, Field’s title design for Paranoid made use of a fairly recent, somewhat obscure adaptation of an earlier letter style. This time, though, instead of using an alphabet from a book based on a typeface, it was a typeface based on an alphabet from a book.

Scanned by Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Book jacket for Lettera 2 (left), “a standard book of fine lettering” edited by Armin Haab and Walter Haettenschweiler and published by Niggli in 1961. One of the included alphabets is Lettre coupé. The showing on page 53 (right) is caps only and omits the letter L.

In 1961, the Lettera 2 book was released as the second entry in the Lettera series of alphabet sourcebooks, published by Arthur Niggli Ltd. The book, edited by Armin Haab and Walter Haettenschweiler, included a collection of various alphabet designs – some taken directly from typefaces, others from original lettering samples. One of the samples was an original alphabet, titled Lettre Coupé, designed by Haettenschweiler with a hand-cut appearance.

Some designers adapted the alphabet for album artwork, sometimes modifying glyphs, altering the proportions, and/or improvising characters that weren’t included in the original sample.

By 1969, the alphabet had been adapted into a proper typeface by the Lettergraphics phototype company, offered under the name Black Casual. The typeface added new counterforms to A, B, and P, as well as a few new characters (L, comma, ?, and &). Black Casual appears to be what Field used to compose the titling for Paranoid. Given the Black name, the use might be considered a partial LTypI.

Scanned by Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Californian phototype provider Lettergraphics turned Haettenschweiler’s lettering into a proper typeface. Their adaptation called Black Casual can here be seen in a catalog dated 1969. It adds the missing L alongside some punctuation glyphs (comma, question mark, ampersand) and also introduces counters in A B and P.

Perhaps inspired by the dark vibes of Paranoid, Lettre Coupé was adapted in 1973 for the title sequence of blaxploitation horror film Scream Blacula Scream.

Source: www.artofthetitle.com Art of the Title. License: All Rights Reserved.

Title frame from the opening sequence of Scream Blacula Scream (1973).

Master of Reality (1971)

Source: fontsinuse.com Scanned by Nick Sherman. License: All Rights Reserved.

The cover of Sabbath’s third album dropped photography entirely and went all-in on a text-only treatment, with large, bold, in-your-face, typography – twisted and warped as if being shaken by high-amplitude vibrations, or distorted by altered perception. While the photography of the first two Sabbath records gave them a dark, otherworldly feeling, the Master of Reality cover also puts an emphasis on HEAVINESS.

The darkness wasn’t abandoned though. Below the purple band name, the album’s title for the first pressings was only distinguished from the black background via embossing, resulting in raised letterforms that are equally as tactile as they are visual. If the question is “How much more black could this be?”, the answer is: “None. None more black.”

Eventually the record companies releasing new editions of the album decided that “none more black” was too black and/or embossing was too expensive, so the cover has seen many variants over the years with the title alternately colored gray, white, orange, green, pink, black with white outline, and more. Some releases have also colored the band’s name in alternating rainbow colors.

Source: www.discogs.com Discogs. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

A sampling of the various colorways that have been used for Master of Reality over the years.

Despite the text-only cover, Keef’s stylized photography still made an appearance on a poster included as an insert with the original release. The design for the album is credited to Bloomsbury Group, a British firm active in the 1970s (apparently named after the early-1900s intellectual collective of the same name), with art direction by Mike Stanford.

The typeface on the cover is, yet again, an obscure phototype interpretation of an existing design. In this case, the ancestral type is Rudolf Koch’s Kabel which originated in the late 1920s. The reimagined adaptation used for Master of Reality is Lodwick Kabel, which pushes the weight of Kabel beyond any of its previous incarnations, and even heavier than ITC or Letraset would later take their interpretations in 1975 and 1980, respectively.

Nick Sherman. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

A comparison of the heaviest interpretations of Kabel as offered variously in phototype, dry transfer lettering, and digital type. Samples scaled to approximately matching cap heights.

Lodwick Kabel was available by 1970 from the Photoscript phototype company, and presented as an “Exclusive Royalty face”. The name suggests a possible connection to Hardy/Lodwick (a.k.a. Hardy/Escasany/Lodwick), a studio that was active in London in the 1970s – but that connection is unconfirmed.

Scanned by Florian Hardwig. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

London-based typesetting company Photoscript showed Lodwick Kabel in their List of Typefaces 1970, as “Exclusive Royalty face” and in two widths.

Scanned by Florian Hardwig. License: All Rights Reserved.

Lodwick Kabel as shown in a 1990 specimen book from the TypoBach typesetting company.

Since its release, the Master of Reality cover has been imitated many times, perhaps most prominently by British rock group Arctic Monkeys. Even Black Sabbath themselves have rehashed the warped sans-serif effect for a Black Lives Matter benefit T-shirt.

Vol 4 (1972)

Source: fontsinuse.com Internet Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

The cover for Sabbath’s fourth album, appropriately titled Vol 4, continues the theme of extra-large, extra-bold type from Master of Reality. As with the precursor, the design is attributed to Bloomsbury Group with photography by Keef – this time credited by his real name, Keith Macmillan. For this release, Keef’s photography was brought back onto the cover, showing Ozzy with arms raised, giving his signature gesture of victorious peace signs ✌️ (not to be confused with the devil horns 🤘 popularized later by Ozzy’s successor, Ronnie James Dio). The image is treated more as a graphic element than a photograph, with a high-contrast monochrome effect, framed compactly on three sides with tightly-spaced, extra-heavy, geometric, sans-serif type. As with the previous albums, the name of the band and the name of the album are set in the same size and face.

Though there were plenty of heavy geometric sans-serif typefaces being used around that time with similar structural features, the style used for Vol 4 seems to be a primarily original design, and not a direct adaptation of some other existing face. The typeface in question is Gadget, available by 1971 from Alphabet Photosetting, who listed it as a copyrighted design. Dry transfer lettering sheets of a Lined variant of the face were produced by Zipatone, and they credit the design to Peter Bennett.

Source: www.flickr.com Scanned by Nick Sherman. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

Glyph set for Gadget with alternate forms for c e &, from an undated catalog by Alphabet Photosetting.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The striped variant, Gadget Lined, was also produced by Letraset competitor Zipatone for dry transfer lettering. This sheet from their Zipatone Designers Fonts (ZDF) range has caps in 84pt. Thanks to this adaptation, we know that Gadget is the design of Peter Bennett.

Due to the obscure nature of Gadget, many people over the years have assumed the Vol 4 titling was a case of one-off lettering and not composed with a proper typeface. As such there have been multiple typefaces in more recent years using the iconic design as inspiration for creating new typefaces. It’s interesting to see how others extrapolate the letters from the cover into an entirely re-imagined set of glyphs – with some letters matching Gadget quite closely but others being taken to totally new and different places. Some examples include OZIK, Volume Dealers, and VolumeFour.

Nick Sherman. License: CC BY-NC-SA.

A comparison of the original Gadget with related digital fonts, namely: K22 Gadget, VolumeFour, and OZIK. The latter two examples were based specifically on the cover of Vol 4, presumably without using a full alphabet of the original Gadget as a reference.

The iconic nature of Vol 4’s cover also makes it a common subject for imitation and parody, especially with assistance from those newer digital fonts.

The Vol 4 design came full circle recently when the digital VolumeFour typeface inspired by the album cover was used for promotional materials and on-stage graphics for Black Sabbath’s final show, “Back to the Beginning”, on July 5, 2025 – less than three weeks before the passing of Ozzy Osbourne.

Source: www.jambase.com JamBase. License: All Rights Reserved.

Though Black Sabbath went on to release plenty of other noteworthy albums, the first four seem especially foundational. They are also unique in their common use of obscure typefaces, and their involvement of Keef for visuals.

Finding proper identifications for these typefaces has only been possible with the efforts of others, sometimes as a collaborative effort that unfolded over literal years in the comments of old Fonts In Use posts. Special thanks are due to Florian Hardwig, Daylight Fonts, Mark Simonson, Patrick Concannon, and Fontastique Faces. Additionally, Kory Grow’s interview with Keith Macmillan for Rolling Stone was extremely insightful, even though it didn’t discuss specifics of typography. Finally, investigative work for articles like this would be nearly impossible without Discogs and the Internet Archive.

If you have any further information about these typefaces or their use on the Black Sabbath records, please leave a message in the comments below or on the separate entries for each album. Those entries include more details about supporting typefaces, with additional detailed images:

• Black Sabbath
• Paranoid
• Master of Reality
• Vol 4

✌️

Decca SLK 16834-P. Ted Heath’s name is in Univers; the track list in Akzidenz-Grotesk.

Ted Heath (1902–1969) was a British big band leader. His 1967 album Swing Is King was issued in a number of cover variants. The image above shows what I believe to be the original design. The photo depicts royal insignia – crown, orb and scepter – on a throne, surrounded by musical instruments, with red curtains in the back. Above, the title is set in capitals from an ornamented typeface. It’s Karnac, which originated at the Dickinson Type Foundry in Boston in 1884, and was adopted for phototypesetting by VGC in 1967. The typeface choice continues the theme of regal pomp. It certainly helped that some of the ornamentation in John F. Cumming’s design echoes the fleurs-de-lis seen on the crown.

The variant shown below is an example of a fine cover ruined by series design: someone at Decca/London Records decided that it additionally had to feature the large numeral 4 from the Phase 4 Stereo design (cf. Chacksfield Plays the Beatles’ Song Book). The already complex photo is now cut up by thick white lines. And there wasn’t enough space left at the top, so the title had to be crammed into the small field at the top left. Too much elements, and too little space for Karnac to breathe.

A German reissue from 1969 (last image) replaces Karnac with Moore Swash, a VGC original by James H. Moore and shows the artist’s name in Times New Roman. For some reason, the photograph was mirrored for this variant.

[More info on Discogs]

London Records SP 44104. The track names are here set in Trade Gothic.

The gatefold has the liner notes set in Trade Gothic Condensed, with the numeral 4 shown in negative. The text about Phase 4 Stereo on the right uses Century Schoolbook. Lowercase Futura serves for the heading.

Decca DS 3198/1-2 double LP

A Group Called Smith is the first album by American rock band Smith. It was released in July 1969 by Dunhill Records.

The album art design is credited to Apple Graphics, and the pictures to photographer Paul Slaughter.

Karnac is used for the band name, accompanied by Baker Signet for “a group called” which is the beginning of the album title.

[More info on Discogs]

Detail with the title lockup

The small text on the back cover is set in Univers.

A Child’s Garden of Grass started out as a handbook written by Jack S. Margolis and Richard Clorfene, first published by Contact Books in 1969. In 1971, it was adapted into A Child’s Garden of Grass (A Pre-Legalization Comedy), a long-playing record produced and directed by Ron Jacobs, along with Margolis.

Dave Davison’s Fandango is used for the title both on the album cover and on the paperback reissue of the handbook by Pocket Books, as well as for the promotional campaign. Fandango is similar to Davison Bolero, with noticeable differences – such as Fandango having additional ornaments in certain glyphs or double notches in letters such as O and D. Both Fandango and Bolero are modelled after Central’s Othello.

The album was art directed “in a joint effort” by Robert L. Heimall and William S. Harvey. John Balsley styled the photo. It features all kinds of topical items from marijuana plants, a hookah, tobacco crumbs, papers, and matchboxes to a Lady Justice scale, a package of Stoned Wheat Thins, pinback buttons, headphones, a can of air freshener with green leaves, and a Monopoly board.

[More info on Discogs]

There are some words at the top left of the back cover that use Smoke (“GRASS”), Flirt (“MARIJUANA”) and Karnac (“CANNABIS SATIVA”). Track list and credits are set in sober Helvetica.

Cover of the handbook as reissued by Pocket Books. The secondary typeface is (a phototype version of) Page No. 506.

Promotional poster by Elektra Records

A billboard on Sunset Strip, advertising the release of the album in 1971. Coincidentally, the Music Hall sign below uses a stylistically related typeface, Rubens.

Front and back of the gatefold LP

A Short Walk Through a Wide World is a fantasy novel written by Douglas Westerbeke, and published in 2024 by Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

The title typeface is Matrix Tall Semi, one of two condensed styles of the Matrix family distinguished by elongated descenders, triangle dots, amongst other details. The name of the author is in the plain semi narrow style.

"A novel" is set in what appears to be a digital version of Hogarth.

A nineteenth-century abstinence pledge card. For another card, see Touch Not, Taste Not, Handle Not.

With Malice Toward None, With Charity for All
I, the undersigned, do pledge myself, God helping me, to abstain from all intoxicating liquors, as a beverage.
Feb. 22, 1881
Mrs. R. Best

The hatched blackletter goes by the name of Title Text Open No. 3. The left-leaning script is Bulletin and the wide slab is Antique Extended.

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Jens Jørgen Hansen, bogtrykker and tagged with “barnum”. License: All Rights Reserved.

20 pkt Barnum from Bauer & Co, shown in use in a small letterhead for Engelsk Beklædnings Magasin, advertising English menswear, lingerie, and hats. The store on Ringkjøbing’s Nygade was still in operation in the 1960s.

It was printed by A. Rasmussens Bogtrykkeri sometime in the 1910s. In fact this is not just an identical fount of Barnum used for this little print – this little print is set and printed from the exact same types now in my collection, when they was a part of the type collection at A. Rasmussen. The fount is together with its sisters on 36 & 60 pkt pin marked Bauer & Co Stuttgart. In 1897 the foundry was purchased by H. Berthold, Berlin, which continued to run the Bauer foundry as a branch.

Other typefaces include a Latin Antique – a style known in Germany as Breite Etienne – and one not further identified style (or two?) from the Romana genre, in roman and italic.

Remember that it is always possible to book a workshop if you are interested in playing with my rich collection of historical types and ornaments.

Photo via Urban Remains

The cover page of a catalogue booklet for Stow & Haight Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The company was active from 1880 to 1885 and tables were their primary product. After 1885, Haight was bought out by George Davis and the company reorganized as Stow & Davis.

“Tables” is in (a) Celtic (c.1867), “Catalogue and Price List” is set in Attic (1879), and “Of” might be in (an) Antique Extended (c.1858). The numerals for “1884” are from Oxonian (1881) and “Grand Rapids, Michigan” uses Old Style Extended (1880s?). The condensed roman for the company name and the sans serifs are yet unidentified.

Матадор (Matador) is a Russian TV show about modern culture that ran from 1991 to 1995. From Wikipedia (translated from the Russian):

The first episode of Konstantin Ernst’s artistic and journalistic cultural television program Matador was aired on January 5, 1991 – it was a program dedicated primarily to cinema, as well as culture, music, fashion, advertising, significant events and creative people. The topics of the episodes included the Venice Film Festival, Paris Haute Couture Week, the filming of the film Apocalypse Now, the life and work of couturier Paco Rabanne, the creator of Benetton advertising campaigns Oliviero Toscani, singer Serge Gainsbourg, film actress Marilyn Monroe, and directors Jean-Luc Godard, Wim Wenders and Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

The logo is in a Cyrillic version of Bramley, with seriously squoosed letterforms. Titles use a wide variety of fonts.

Belwe for Стивен Содерберг (Steven Soderbergh)

Karnac

Bramley

Bookman

Stencil

Mistral

Oakwood

Palatino in italic caps

Source: www.flickr.com Uploaded to Flickr by Alan Mays and tagged with “no500page”, “duerer” and “latinantique”. License: All Rights Reserved.

A broadside printed in 1907 by David Bachman Landis, Pluck Art Printery, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Home Talent.
The Social Mandolin Club will hold a Musicale in the Landisville Band Hall, June 15, 1907
They will be assisted by a Reader and Vocalist.
8:00 sharp.
Adults, - - 15 cents. Children, - 10 cents.
Pluck Print, Lancaster, Pa.

“Home Talent” is in Page’s No. 500, and “The Social Mandolin Club” in the similarly boxy Duerer. The wide roman with split shade is Eclipse Shaded. Latin Antique is used for the remainder of the text.

Poster from the collection of the National Library of Norway for an appearance of the circus led by Norwegian wrestler and strongman, Karl Norbeck, with performances that include “Bullpunching”. Someone has written 1900 as a date on the poster, but Norbeck apparently hadn’t purchased his circus until 1904 (the next year with June 23rd falling on a Saturday, as specified on the poster, would have been 1906).

Regardless of its exact date, the poster features a smorgasbord of decorative 19th-century typefaces typical of the typographic styles at the turn of the 20th century – some that were fairly common at the time and others that are much harder to find in historical use. The N in ‘Norbeck’ appears to be upside-down.

The printing credit at the bottom of the poster specifies the source as ‘‘Trondhjem, Lie & Sundts Bogtrykkeri”.

See the related listing at the National Library of Norway.

Full transcription:

CIRKUS VARIETEE.
Brydekjæmpen
Norbeck
Lørdag den 23de Juni Kl. 8 Aften
paa Skøitebanetomten.
Optræden af den
Norske Turner Ole Kristiansen.
Enestaaende Præstationer i Stolpyramide, Trapetz og romerske Ringe.
Mr. Oscardo.
Haandekvilibrist, enestaaende uden Conkurrance.
Hr. Westby.
Nutidens bedste Slangeimitatør.
– Non plus ultra –
Komiker Bøe.
Søskende Westby, Norsk Halling- og Springdans.
– Orginale Dragter og Dans. –
Optræden af den berømte Dumme Peter Balskansky.
Stor Suces fra Akershusfestlighederne.
Hr. Norbeck
giver Opvisning i
amerikansk Køllesving, Løftning.
Løfter Vegt fra 50 Kg. till 500.
Nyt. Bullpunching. Interessant.
Billetpriser: 1ste Plads Kr. 1.00, 2den Plads 75, staaende 50 Ore.
Billetter erholdes ved Indgangen fra 1 Time før Forestillingen begynder.
God Musik.

Ærbødigst
Karl Norbeck,
Direktør.

Trondhjem, Lie & Sundts Bogtrykkeri.

Caldo de grelos. Versos gallegos is a book of Galician poetry written by R. Armada Teixeiro (Chumín de Céltegos) and published by A Propaganda Literaria, Habana (Cuba), 1895.

A Propaganda Literaria (1864–?) was one of the most important publishers in Cuba at the end of the 19th century. Founded by the Galician Alejandro Chao (1835–1894), his most notable editions were printed publications and books for Asturian and Galician readers.