Linotype Matrices: One-Line Specimens
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company's working catalogue of April 1913.
What it is
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company's working catalogue of April 1913. The foreword gives the reason for it: machines with several magazines had carried the Linotype into job and display work, department store advertising included, and with more than 27,000 machines in use the range had grown from about 700 faces in 1910 to 995. Each face gets one or two specimen lines, most reading THE LINOTYPE WAY Is the Only Way to set department store advertisements, plus the width of its lower-case alphabet in ems, its figure size and a telegraph code word for ordering. Sections cover book, news, job and display faces, head letters up to 36 point, display advertising figures for prices, the Rogers tabular system, and foreign faces: Hebrew, German, Russian, Greek, Armenian, and one Arabic font in 22 point only, 2,504 matrices for $200. Price lists and width tables close it.
Why read it now
Three habits here still work. It sells a platform by the size of its library: the foreword turns 995 faces and 27,000 installed machines into the reason to buy, as software firms now cite integrations and user counts. It repeats one line on every page, The Linotype Way Is the Only Way, and sets that line as the specimen text, so the catalogue advertises while it lists. And it strips friction from ordering: agencies by territory, code words, a gauge to identify any matrix, and blunt notes on the omissions that delay shipment. What has dated: the hot-metal hardware, and an absolute claim like the only way, which would need proof under most advertising codes today. The Arabic entry is a record of how thin Arabic machine type was in 1913: one size, 180 characters doubled up on 90 keys, usable only on a machine fitted for Hebrew. Use: when a product range is large, publish a one-line-per-item index with a code for each item and the ordering rules on the first page, before any brochure.
Passages worth keeping
The introduction of multiple magazine machines so broadened the scope of the Linotype that its adoption for job and display composition, large newspaper headings, department store advertising, etc., has become almost universal.
توسعت الآلة من صف نصوص الكتب والصحف إلى العناوين والإعلانات التجارية، فصار انتشارها شبه شامل، وهذا ما استدعى خطوطًا جديدة كثيرة.
The Linotype Way Is the Only Way
شعار الشركة المكرر في أسفل الصفحات: طريقة لينوتايب هي الطريقة الوحيدة، وهو ادعاء مطلق يربط اسم العلامة بالحل كله.
In many department store advertisements the prices of articles appear in display figures from 10- to 24-point, in connection with two to four lines of matter set in Roman.
إعلانات المتاجر الكبرى تضع السعر بأرقام كبيرة بجانب سطرين إلى أربعة أسطر من الوصف، فصممت الشركة أداة تصف الاثنين معًا في خطوة واحدة.
Arabic also reads from right to left, the same as Hebrew, and as the only size in which it is made is 22-point, this face can be used only in a machine equipped with both a head letter mold and Hebrew attachment.
الخط العربي متاح بحجم واحد فقط، ولا يعمل إلا على آلة مجهزة لحروف العناوين وللكتابة من اليمين إلى اليسار، وهذا يبين محدودية الطباعة العربية الآلية آنذاك.
Whenever this information is omitted from an order it is necessary for us to correspond with the customer, and this causes delay in shipment which might just as well be avoided if the data were given in the first instance.
تشرح الشركة للعميل بصراحة أن نقص المعلومات في الطلب يؤخر الشحن، فتعلمه كيف يطلب طلبًا كاملًا من المرة الأولى.
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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