Egyptian Shaded Extended

I am trying to track down the origins of this Phoenix Type Foundry Revival - Egyptian Shaded Extended. Sources suggest that Charlie Broad replicated type from the Illinois Type Foundry but I am wondering if it might go back beyond them; I’d like to find its creation date if possible.. (Also would be interested if anyone has access to a specimen book from the Illinois Type Foundry.

I’ve exhausted my specimen books on 19th century type without luck. I still need to check Nicolete Gray’s book but thought I’d see if anyone in the community has any insights.

image: EgyptianShadedExtended.JPG

EgyptianShadedExtended.JPG

Log in to reply   10 replies so far

Maurice Annenberg’s Type Foundries of America and their Catalogs lists copies of the 1873 Illinois specimen at Columbia, Harvard, Nebraska, and Yale, 1883 and 1887 at Columbia, 1890 his own collection. Gray’s 1976 edition doesn’t show this face. Keep hunting.

As Darrell has said, this face is not in Nicolete Gray’s last edition, 1976. Egyptians and Shaded Egyptians abounded in the 1830s. But I would say that this face - extended, and with curved vertical strokes - would be quite a bit later.

I have Illinois Type Foundry specimen books for 1873, 1883, 1886, and 1887, in case you want me to look something up.

To help narrow your search, here’s a negative result…

Annenberg (Type Foundries of America…) says that the Illinois TF, in addition to a relatively small amount of casting on their own, sold types from three other foundries: Bruce, Conner, and Cleveland. James Conner’s obituary in The Inland Printer credits him with an “Egyptian Shaded.” But your Egyptian Shaded is not the same as the Conner Egyptian Shaded (as shown in Dave Peat’s reprint from the 1888 Conner specimen book).

David M.
www.CircuitousRoot.com

Thank you for the help. Even eliminating sources is very useful. Stephen, everytime I hear about your specimen collection I am amazed at what you have gathered. If you have time I would be very appreciative if you could check to see if this Egyptian Shaded Extended appears there.

Sky Shipley, who owns the mats I am casting from, suspects this may be a face that Charlie Broad derived from optical sources since it includes a few special characters including open and close quotes. Interestingly his set of mats only includes the uppercase, points, and figures; no lowercase characters. Nonetheless, I am enjoying casting it and can’t wait to print from the type when I finish.

I’ve seen this typeface listed as “Galena” (Dan Solo / Solotype) and as “Gunsmoke” in phototype and digital fonts.

This site mentions the original being from James Connor’s Sons foundry c.1888:
https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/fontmesa/gunsmoke/

Luc Devroye also mentions it made being by James Connor’s Sons foundry:
http://luc.devroye.org/ext19.html

The myfonts site may have obtained their information from the Devroye website. ??

I don’t have James Connor’s Sons specimen books to confirm the above.

Maybe Charles Broad used proofs from Dan Solo to make the mats?

Michael Vickey

http://nickel-plate-press.com

Jane Roberts had an original Conner font, of the more extended face. I, also, think that Solo’s “Galena” may have been copied for those Broad mats. In Jane’s notes, she estimated the original date of the extended face, as 1860. Here is the photo of her font, with the Conner page. Note: that size was labeled,”Great-Primer Ornamented No.13.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/39182740@N04/34173922315/in/dateposted-pub...
Dave Greer

Wow, Some great progress. Michael, thank you for the connection to Galena and Gunsmoke, I completely missed those in my online searches.

The fact that the Conner 1888 specimen lists it as “original” instead of “patented” is interesting. Am I right in assuming this means either the patent had expired or that it had never been patented?

Looks like the next step is checking Conner’s earlier specimen books, anyone have copies of those?

TH,

Good luck with your further research, but I suspect there is no 19th Century foundry source for the exact typeface you are casting.

I think it’s likely Charles Broad used Dan Solo’s redrawn and slightly condensed artwork (Galena) to make the mats you are using.

Michael Vickey

http://nickel-plate-press.com

Thank you Michael,
After seeing the Dan Solo specimen I find it pretty likely that is the source these mats were cut from since Sky’s mats include the same characters minus the lowercase and parenthesis.

I’d still like to find out when Conner released the original face if possible since it makes it much easier to mimic historic styles of printing when one uses the right style typefaces in the right decades.

THGroves -

Here is a little more obscure info on some of the other revival mats held at the Skyline Type Foundry.

Your Thunderbird is actually Tuscan Broadguage which was issued by Charles T. White & Co. as well as Farmer Little (1885). However it can be traced back as far as the Marr Foundry (Scotland) in 1853. Charles Broad had the late Herb Harnish send a proof of Herb’s font to him and then Charles sent the ‘artwork’ to Japan to have the mats made. If you look carefully you will notice that the lower right serif on the “E” is worn and missing! This is because the E that Herb had proofed for Charles was damaged! No one noticed this until the mats had been made and the revival type had been cast. How’s that for trivia?

Another face you have the mats for is 42 pt. Old Carnival. This one bugged me for years and I eventually came to the conclusion that it might have been a phototype face or was drawn for Charley. It took me decades, but I finally found it shown in George Bruce’s Son & Co. abridged specimen book dated 1869 and listed as 6-pica Ornamented No. 5. So it really was a legitimate antique design, although larger when originally cast.

Hopefully you can add these typographic tidbits to your master notes on these faces.

Rick von Holdt