Font ID help

Lestaret
on 14 Mar 10 (16:57)

Hi. I am a bit of a newbie with letterpress and have recently bought a job lot of founts and am currently sorting and cataloguing exactly what I have got. Most I can identify, but some are giving me a bit of trouble, especially the scripts. I think this is some sort of French Script, but can’t find a name to attach to it. Also, how does one go about ‘sizing’ a script such as this? The cap height is approx 7mm and the body is approx 9mm. I’m ok with standard roman founts, but scripts, well!

unknown-script.gif

Stanislaus Pekala
on 14 Mar 10 (21:14)

The best I can see of this it looks like Stephenson, Blake’s Mercury Light. Hot metal type sizes for script, roman, italic, gothic, grotesque, antique, modern, or whatever is determined by the point size of the body, regardless of the of the face size. A point is .01383 of an inch, 72 points = .996 of an inch.

Lestaret
on 15 Mar 10 (14:55)

Thanks Stanislaus, I think you are right - Mercury Light seems to fit the bill. I have also found several “Stephenson Blake & Co.” marks in a number of the other founts on the spacing material which also makes your identification all the more accurate to me.

Thanks for the guidance on measuring type too - every bit of advice is welcome! I’ll probably be back for some more help identifying these scripts!