THIS ONE GOTHIC

Hi there,

I recently acquired this one gothic or grotesk. I think this type can be from a small type founder that also sold hand presses. It is very clean and the lead has a good color. I looked at a 1923 ATF specimen and of course I couldn’t find a match. It is a 14 pt and has only caps, figs and punctuation. No pin.
Hopefully some one will know and comment. Cheers!

André

image: gothic.jpg

gothic.jpg

image: gothic_reading.jpg

gothic_reading.jpg

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Your font is definitely a 19th century-early 20th century face because it still incorporates the diphthongs AE and OE which are ligatures in classical Latin that had pretty much vanished by the early 20th century.

I found your font shown in the 1906-07 Keystone Type Foundry catalog, listed as Gothic No. 14. It also appears in their 1919 (when they merged with ATF) catalog as Lining Gothic No. 114.

Diphtongs are still in daily use in French, German and Dutch, and most new foundry type in Europe still comes with them. It could well be a Folio or an Akzidenz Grotesk. Pull a proof, that would make identification easier.

I was referring to American foundries discontinuing the addition of the diphthongs in their fonts.

There are enough unique characters (K, J, C, G, M. etc.) in the font shown to definitely nail it down as Gothic No. 14 from Keystone. The name later changed with the advent of the promotion of the lining concept and Keystone/ATF added a figure to make it No. 114, not an uncommon occurrence at that time. I went into the shop and started looking at 14 pt. fonts that I have from Keystone. Some do have the keystone symbol in the pinmark, BUT I have a font of 14 pt. Niagara from Keystone that has a blank pinmark also.

Not being able to leave well enough alone, I dug a little deeper and have discovered that Lanston Monotype also offered what appears to be a copy of this face as Gothic, No. 429. If your font is Monotype, it should not have a pinmark at all.

It is shown in Mac McGrew’s book without the diphthongs, but the diphthongs are shown in the Monotype catalog. Leafing through the Monotype catalog, I now see that there are LOTS of faces that also have the diphthongs available! They are mostly the old gothics, but then it really starts to get WEIRD!!!!

There are lots of roman faces that also have dipthongs in the Monotype specimen book, BUT they too are not included as part of the fonts in McGrew’s book. Even stranger than that, there are several Goudy faces in the Monotype book that include diphthongs (Kennerly, Italian Oldstyle, Hadriano, etc.) but to my knowledge these were never actually drawn by Goudy because they do not appear in any specimens of his alphabets that I recall.

I am beginning to think that Monotype cut these themselves. There are also many non-Goudy faces in the Monotype book where this occurs as well.

McGrew mentions that diphthongs were commonly supplied until around the end of the nineteenth century, but faces that already had diphthongs included them well into the twentieth century. It now appears that Monotype made a practice of ADDING them to their fonts in many cases!

This opens up a whole new line of inquiry to pursue.

Wow. Thanks a bunch. Sorry the pictures aren’t good enough.
I actually don’t know why, just that it looks a old cut and at the same time, when you look at the cast, it is clean and professional. I doubt it is as old as the Keystone Gothic No. 14. I wish it was.

I guess the Monotype Gothic no. 429 is a better point, as the type is clean, just a couple of “A”s were inked, as if this is no older then 1970. Otherwise this thing set down from 1920s…

Either way I like ”Gothic No. 14“ better as to name it. I remember seeing many types back in Europe by the name of “series 435, series 12” etc. and I think those were Monotype mats that they sold to small foundries which would call them whatever they wanted, I guess.

I will see when I am able to make a little quick proof and put it here, for your typographic delight. Cheers!

André

Hi there,

Sorry it took a long time to get this proofed. And, finally here for your typographic enjoyment: Baptized “Gothic No. 14”.

image: this one gothic_1.jpg

this one gothic_1.jpg