Specimen Book and Catalog, May 1902
The May 1902 specimen book and catalogue of the Inland Type Foundry of St Louis, close to 490 pages.
What it is
The May 1902 specimen book and catalogue of the Inland Type Foundry of St Louis, close to 490 pages. A preface headed Pertinent Facts makes the foundry's case: cheap type is dearer in the end, type costs little next to composing-room wages, and Inland's Standard Line (every face on a body sits on one baseline) and point-set widths (every character on a multiple of one-eighth point) cut setting and make-ready time. Then come ordering rules and estimate tables for fitting out weekly newspapers and job offices, such as a 6-column paper with an Army press for $175.60. The specimens show over 830 faces, from Roman No. 20 and Caslon Old Style to Woodward, Blanchard and Kelmscott, and many sample lines are sales headlines for the system itself. It ends with borders, ornaments, brass rule, presses and cabinets, five pages of customer letters, and indexes.
Why read it now
Read it as a complete business-to-business sales argument bound as a catalogue. The strongest move is turning price into cost of ownership: type is small money beside wages, so type that saves 10 per cent of labour pays for itself within a year. That is the logic of every ROI calculator in B2B selling today. Second, the sample text sells: specimen lines such as PERMITS PRINTERS TO SECURE PROFITS show the face and repeat the pitch at once. Third, it names an enemy, the Type Trust (American Type Founders), and promises a book with no padding. Fourth, customer letters carry names, towns and dates, with a note that the originals are on file. The idea won: a shared baseline became the trade norm, and American Type Founders bought Inland in 1911. What has dated: unproven superlatives, and calling rivals ignorant or incompetent, which reads as hostile now. Use: in a Gulf B2B offer, set the client's labour or time cost beside your price, put the payback period in the headline, and make the demo content restate the argument.
Passages worth keeping
Unfortunate, because there is as great a difference in the various qualities of type as in the various grades of paper, ink, or printing itself, and low-priced type is always the dearest in the end.
الفرق في جودة الحروف كبير مثل الفرق في جودة الورق والحبر، والحرف الرخيص هو الأغلى في النهاية.
It therefore follows that type which accomplishes the saving of, say, only 10 per cent in labor will cost the proprietor nothing, as it will pay for itself in a year, and thereafter yield a large profit on the investment.
إذا وفر الحرف عُشر وقت العمال فهو مجاني في الحقيقة، لأنه يسترد ثمنه خلال سنة ثم يصبح ربحًا.
We desire to emphasize the fact that ours is the only typefoundry in the South, and west of the Mississippi (excepting San Francisco), that is not connected with the Type Trust.
يقدم المسبك نفسه على أنه المستقل الوحيد في منطقته أمام الاحتكار، ويجعل هذا الاستقلال سببًا للشراء منه.
In comparing this Specimen Book with others, do not lose sight of the fact that there has been no padding in order to produce a bulky volume.
يطلب المسبك من القارئ أن يلاحظ أن الكتاب بلا حشو، فكل صفحة فيه مفيدة، على خلاف كتب المنافسين الضخمة.
When we started, our innovations were decried as being impractical, and our plans denounced as visionary.
يروي المسبك قصة المبتكر الذي سخر منه الجميع ثم أثبت السوق صحة رأيه.
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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