Carload of type for Texas printers

This picture of a typographic freight car is reproduced from an article that appeared in the June 1896 issue of the Inland Printer. It reads:

A Large Shipment of Type
The accompanying illustration was made from a photograph of the first carload of type ever shipped from St. Louis. The shipment was made by the American Type Founders’ Company to their Texas agents, the Scarff & O’Connor Company, of Dallas. The car contained over 30,000 pounds of type, and was turned out with other orders between February 6 and the date shipment was made—March 25. This is pretty good evidence that there is some material being used in the Southwest, and also that St. Louis is well able to supply the demand.

The wagon was used as a self-referential billboard on wheels, with a sign on the side that advertised its contents – out-of-home advertising in the 1890s. The text is rendered in a wide roman with considerable contrast. It’s way too large to be itself typeset and printed, of course. This was a job for a sign painter. Still, I’d like to think that the letterforms were loosely based on a typeface, making this an example of fonts in indirect use.

The typeface that served as the model is De Vinne Extended. At least that’s what the C with the distinctive underbite suggests. In addition to weight and proportion, other shared characteristics include the big-headed R with diagonal leg, the E and F with thin long arms, the u with angled top terminals, and the r with ball terminal. Granted, the S is not really a match – but then again, it just as hard to faithfully copy an S as it is to draw a good one. One more reason that speaks in favor of De Vinne Extended is that this style was a brand-new product at the time, having been introduced the same year.

Carload of type for
TEXAS PRINTERS
Bought by
SCARFF & O’CONNOR CO.,
Dallas, TEXAS
of the
American Type Founders’ Co.,
Via Frisco St. Louis, Mo.