Catalogue and Book of Specimens of Type Faces and Printing Material and Machinery
A 488-page trade catalogue from the Cleveland Type Foundry in Ohio, opened by a letter from its manager, F. B. Berry, dated January 1896.
What it is
A 488-page trade catalogue from the Cleveland Type Foundry in Ohio, opened by a letter from its manager, F. B. Berry, dated January 1896. It starts with a table explaining the point system, which replaced old size names such as Brevier and Long Primer with numbered points so that type from different foundries would fit together. Most of the book then shows display and body faces, from Poster Antique and DeVinne to Celtic, Mikado, Tudor Black and a run of scripts, each set in sample lines with its font scheme and price. Stock cuts follow (society emblems, horses, druggists' signs), then brass rule, wood type, and priced presses, paper cutters, cabinets and gas engines. It closes with printers' tables on margins, leads and newspaper sizes, and complete priced outfits for newspaper and job offices, the largest at $1,973.10.
Why read it now
Read it as a sales document built around the buyer's next order. Every specimen carries its own price and font scheme, the general information pages coach the printer on ordering sorts without mistakes, and the closing estimates bundle a whole shop into one priced list that ends with an invitation to write for a quote. That structure still works: show the product in use, price it on the same page, and offer ready-made bundles the buyer can edit. The point system page is a plain lesson in selling a new standard: it explains the change in simple terms and refuses to keep the old names alive. What has dated is the type itself. Most of these ornamented faces disappeared within a generation, and ATF's own 1923 specimen book asked who still remembered the Celtics and Clarendons. The sample texts, full of jokes, morals and small stories, show that filler copy gets read, so it deserves writing. One use: build your price list as editable bundles with a single next step.
Passages worth keeping
ALL TYPE SHOWN IN THIS BOOK IS CAST ON THE POINT SYSTEM OF INTERCHANGEABLE TYPE BODIES, AND WILL WORK TOGETHER AND JUSTIFY ACCURATELY.
كل الحروف المعروضة مصبوبة على نظام النقاط الموحد، لذلك تعمل معًا في الصف دون فروق. الوعد هنا هو التوافق، وهو ما يطمئن المشتري قبل أن يطلب.
not to perpetuate the old names, which we believe any attempt to retain in use in connection with the new bodies will result only in confusion.
يعرض المسبك جدول الأسماء القديمة للشرح فقط، لأنه يرى أن الإبقاء عليها بجانب المقاسات الجديدة لن يجلب إلا الارتباك.
Brass can be Polished to Glitter like Gold.
سطر نموذجي في عينة خط يقول إن النحاس يمكن تلميعه حتى يلمع كالذهب، أي أن اللمعان لا يغيّر حقيقة المعدن.
This takes much less time than hunting up a sheet of paper and folding it, with the chance of getting the margin wrong after all.
جدول الهوامش الجاهز يوفّر على عامل الصف وقت البحث عن ورقة وطيّها، ويقلّل احتمال الخطأ في الهامش.
Make up your list and write for prices.
الخاتمة تطلب من القارئ أن يعدّ قائمته ويراسل المسبك لطلب الأسعار، فهي خطوة تالية واحدة وواضحة.
The scanned text has OCR errors. The passages are quoted from it, with only obvious slips fixed.
What it teaches best
Read the original archive.org
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