Please Proof Read My California Job Case Illustration

I would very much appreciate the proof reading of this illustration I am using to show how a California Job Case is organized.

Mark van Bronkhorst is kind enough to be drawing this for me but neither of us are letterpress experts, so I thought I would ask the Briar Press community for comments.

The point of this illustration is to show that letterpress (printing) is heavily based on the grid for organizing information. This is for a book on American commercial engraving.

image: ProofCaliforniaJobCase.gif

ProofCaliforniaJobCase.gif

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Looks pretty good although in practice the top row on the right (above the caps) is considerably more flexible at least in my shop. I seldom have pound or euro signs and do have things like parentheses, square brackets, copper and brass thin spaces, ct and st ligatures, + signs, double quotes, em dashes and lots of other sorts up in that section.

I agree with the prior comment. Also, many fine press printers have removed the m/3 spacing from their cases and moved to m/4 for most work. In most illustrations I’ve seen the compartments along the top are left blank… Nice illustration!

Your illustration got me thinking, since the Euro symbol didn’t come into existence until 1996 it probably is quite rare to find one in metal type, at least original to the typeface… For the book, since it American based, maybe replace the pound and euro with the virgule and m-dash?

I find the top compartments of my cases end up being the “it won’t fit anywhere else” spots in my cases, used for storing all the various pieces which become a part of the faces I use. The ligatures OE, oe, etc. find very rare use in modern setting, and maybe should be excepted in this drawing. How about the inclusion of an em dash? I usually find mine in the compartment adjacent to the dollar sign.

David Bolton of The Alembic Press has collected an impressive amount of information on various cases and case lays, including several different variations of the California Job Case. See:

http://www.alembicpress.co.uk/Typecases/

Regards,
David M. MacMillan
www.CircuitousRoot.com

Hi,

Thank you all for your comments and for taking the time to share them.