Specimens of Wood Type, Borders, Rules, &c.
The specimen book of Wm. H. Page & Co., the Excelsior Wood Type Manufactory at Greeneville, Connecticut: about 390 scanned pages of display letters cut in wood for posters and handbills.
What it is
The specimen book of Wm. H. Page & Co., the Excelsior Wood Type Manufactory at Greeneville, Connecticut: about 390 scanned pages of display letters cut in wood for posters and handbills. A letter to the trade, signed by William H. Page and Samuel Mowry, calls it the largest and most complete wood type specimen yet published, admits the firm is "scarcely three years old", and sets out how to order: name and number of each font, the book it was chosen from, 6 months' credit or 10 per cent off for cash, and any size from 2 to 200 lines Pica made to order. A price list sorts the faces into classes: Antiques, Clarendons, Gothics, Romans, Grecians, a long run of numbered Antique Tuscans, shaded and ornamented letters, and two-colour faces sold with tints. Each specimen page gives face, size and price per letter, alongside borders, rules and corners.
Why read it now
A specimen book is a catalogue in which the product proves itself: every face is printed at real size with its price beside it, so the buyer sees exactly what he pays for. That principle holds for any business that sells a visible result: show the actual output, label it with name, size and price, and cut the adjectives. The letter to the trade is worth reading as copy. A three-year-old firm admits its youth and its rushed layout, then makes a checkable claim, the largest book of its kind, and a clear promise about how to order. The warning against "traveling botch type makers" who sold their own work with Page's specimens is an early case of a brand defending its proof, and marking every font's A with the firm's name is a simple authenticity device. What has dated: sizes counted in lines Pica, the credit terms, and faces built for letterpress. Use: turn your product range into one page per option, each shown at real size with its name, specification and price.
Passages worth keeping
This is the largest, and we believe the most complete Specimen book of Wood Type ever yet published, and is intended especially for the larger Jobbing Offices in the United States and Canadas.
الشركة تقدّم كتابها على أنه الأكبر والأشمل في مجاله، وتحدد جمهوره بدقة: المطابع التجارية الكبيرة في الولايات المتحدة وكندا.
We make no pretentions to being established years ago. We admit we are juveniles in the business
الشركة لا تدّعي تاريخًا طويلًا وتعترف بأنها جديدة في السوق، وهذا الاعتراف يجعل بقية ادعاءاتها أقرب إلى التصديق.
Beware of traveling botch TYPE MAKERS, WHO use these specimens to sell their work by.
تحذير من صنّاع حروف متجولين رديئين يستخدمون نماذج الشركة نفسها لبيع بضاعتهم.
We wish it understood that any intermediate size of Type, not shown in this Book, are made to order, any number of lines Pica, from 2 to 200, if required.
أي مقاس لا يظهر في الكتاب يمكن صنعه حسب الطلب، من الصغير إلى الضخم جدًا، فالكتالوج نقطة بداية لا حد نهائي للعرض.
Our motto is “Excelsior, and Improvement,” and we are bound to be second to none in the business.
شعار الشركة الصعود والتحسين المستمر، وهي تعد بألا يسبقها أحد في هذه الصناعة.
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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