“Look Here!” poster by Calvin & Frazier
From Ohio History Connection:
Dated 1885, this broadside advertises dry goods and other items, such as hats, caps, boots and shoes, overalls, ladies’ and children’s hose, notions of all kinds, glass and queensware, crockery, wooden-ware, iron-ware, etc., sold at discounted prices from February 1, 1885–March 4, 1885, in honor of President-elect Grover Cleveland, at Calvin & Frazier in Lena, Ohio.
The typographic design opens with a big “LOOK HERE!”, printed from a wood type version of French Clarendon. The other larger lines are set in Antique Tuscan Extended (“Cash or Trade“, “DRY GOODS”), Gothic Round (“COME AND SEE”), and Bailey Shaded (“OUR WELL SELECTED STOCK!”). Most text is set in a sans of narrow proportions, possibly Gothic Condensed No. 5. There’s also a Clarendon/Ionic and a few more unidentified typefaces.
2 Comments on ““Look Here!” poster by Calvin & Frazier”
“CALVIN & FRAZIER” is probably set in either Egyptian Expanded or Caslon’s Ionic Expanded.
“MERCHANTS, – LENA, OHIO.” might also be set in a font similar to Akzidenz-Grotesk – possibly either Breite halbfette Grotesk or Blockschrift.
These are definitely very close. Egyptian Expanded strikes me as a tad too wide. Also, the R’s leg extends much further to the right than the bowl. The ampersand is more upright. But maybe there are differences across the sizes? Ionic Expanded has bracketed serifs (see the inner contours in E and F), whereas this detail appears to be straight the sample – but that might be due to the reproduction.
Again, definitely similar. But the mentioned ones all came out after 1885, the year this broadside was printed.
Since this is from Ohio, chances are the types in question are American, not British or German. But sure, there was an exchange, both in terms of direct imports and of copies. I’ve tagged Ionic Expanded for the time being, together with the “uncertain typeface ID” tag.
Generally speaking, ID’ing fonts from this period is tricky: typefaces often had no real trade names yet, rather descriptive terms. And the various sizes of a given typeface often exhibited considerable design differences.