Book of Type Specimens (Specimen Book No. 9)
Specimen Book No. 9 of Barnhart Bros.
What it is
Specimen Book No. 9 of Barnhart Bros. & Spindler, the Chicago type foundry: a catalogue of about 1,000 pages that supersedes its earlier books. A short address, To the Trade, claims it shows more faces cast on the foundry's Point-Line, Point-Set, Point-Body system than any specimen book ever issued, all in Superior Copper-Mixed metal. Two pages explain the system: faces cast on three standard lines (Uniform, Cap and Text) so that different sizes line up with a two-point lead, plus self-justifying set widths. Then come ordering rules, credit terms and tables of words per square inch. The bulk shows hundreds of faces, from Caslon Old Style and De Vinne to Adstyle and Bank Script, each size set in mock ad copy with its font count, weight and price, followed by borders, advertising cuts, brass rule, electrotyped newspaper headings, presses, cabinets and shop tools, and a full index.
Why read it now
Three things still hold. First, the book sells a system, not a list. The lining system addresses a real cost in the shop, time lost packing mismatched faces into line, and the book explains it before it shows a single face. Second, the ordering pages remove friction: order by name and number, send a cap H and a lower-case m to match a sort, weight and price printed with every size. Baymard Institute's checkout studies find that a long or complicated ordering process is one of the main reasons buyers abandon a purchase. Third, the sample copy shows each face at work in an ad, a notice or a newspaper heading, so the printer sees the use, not just the letters. What has dated: metal type and presses, unproved claims such as the most durable metal known, and stock cuts that include racist caricatures sold as advertising ornaments. Use: if you sell a range of design or print services in the Gulf, publish one reference catalogue with a standard, a price and an order code for every item.
Passages worth keeping
Herein we show more faces cast Point-Line, Point-Set, Point-Body, than can be found in any specimen book ever issued.
يقدّم المسبك نظامه في المحاذاة على أنه ميزة لا يملكها غيره، ويستدل بعدد الخطوط المصبوبة عليه.
DO NOT MUTILATE THIS SPECIMEN BOOK BY CUTTING OUT LINES OF TYPE OR CUTS. QUOTE ONLY NAME AND NUMBER AND YOU WILL RECEIVE WHAT YOU ORDER.
لا تقص الصفحات لترسلها مع طلبك، يكفي أن تذكر الاسم والرقم لتصلك البضاعة الصحيحة. نظام ترقيم بسيط يختصر الطلب.
The average printer probably does not realize how many different conditions must be constantly taken into account, and that only by everlasting vigilance can a lining system as perfect as ours be successfully maintained.
يشرح المسبك الجهد الخفي وراء منتجه، فالمشتري لا يرى الدقة المطلوبة لتصطف الحروف، والمسبك يجعل هذا الجهد سببًا للثقة.
Instead of asking our best terms on time, if you will indicate amount of cash you can pay down and the shortest time in which you can pay the balance, business will be facilitated
بدل أن تسأل عن أفضل شروط التقسيط، أخبرنا بما تستطيع دفعه الآن وبأقصر مدة لسداد الباقي، فتنتهي الصفقة أسرع.
"Where is that cut?" is a question asked a hundred thousand times every year, and it is a question often hard to answer.
يبدأ إعلان الخزانة بسؤال يعرفه كل صاحب مطبعة، أين القالب الذي أحتاجه، ثم يقدم المنتج حلًا لهذه المشكلة اليومية.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
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