Initials…

Isn’t that Elite Monograms? I think I have a font of 36 pt. Elite Monograms still in its ATF packaging, so I can get the number if that would be helpful to you.

I see online that someone has taken the old font and made it into a digital font. I cannot find any reference that says that “Elite Monograms” was the original name.

I just looked at my ATF package. They call the typeface “Elite Monogram Initials” and its number is 656.

Kelsey sold this as: 5th Avenue Monograms Initials

Elite Monograms were shown in (at least) the 1961 ATF Typographic Accessories catalog (on p. 28). Available in 36, 48, and 60 point. See:

http://www.archive.org/details/ATFTypographicAccessoriesTY142

Curiously, if you look at McGrew’s index of ATF series numbers, 656 is Bernhard Gothic Medium Title. Did they use a different numbering series for monograms?

Regards,
David M.
http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/press/noncomptype/typogra...

I’ll have to look up the ATF number discrepancy later. Note that there is a regular ‘M’ and an ‘Mc’ character (for McDonald, McGrew, etc.)

Mac McGrew was conflicted as to whether or not to include initials in his book. He advocated that they weren’t really “fonts” and decided not to include them. I did try to talk him into including them (because he asked my opinion early on). It is too bad because there are many initial sets missing.

The kicker is that there actually ARE a few shown in the book so his rule was apparently not absolute.

Rick

It would seem that Baltotype also copied these, as “Floral Monograms.” Here’s a page from their 1959 catalog No. 13:

http://www.galleyrack.com/temp/baltotype-1959-p63-small.jpg

Regards,
David M.
www.CircuitousRoot.com

Thanks to everyone for contributing to my search.

David - I don’t think I ever noticed this before, but NONE of the initial/monogram faces/fonts have a listed series number in the McGrew book. They simply are not named anywhere on the list.

McGrew’s book has a little typographic tidbit at the bottom of page 164, explaining that the decorative initial fonts are “too numerous for this book, except for a few most closely related to regular typefaces.”

This is a real shame because there were probably less than 20 or so and they would have only added a few more pages to the book.

I might try to make it a side project to count and list just how many are missing. That will have to wait until I slow down sometime during the winter.

Rick