Pacific Coast Blue Book: Specimens of Type, Printing Machinery, Printing Material
A 636-page trade catalogue issued in 1896 by the American Type Founders' Company through its San Francisco and Portland branches, bound in blue cloth for printers on the Pacific Coast.
What it is
A 636-page trade catalogue issued in 1896 by the American Type Founders' Company through its San Francisco and Portland branches, bound in blue cloth for printers on the Pacific Coast. It opens with a price list of type by size, from Diamond to Six-Line Pica, and plain terms on accounts, cash, credit, estimates and complaints. The next 150 pages run alphabetically through the print shop: cases and stands, composing sticks, galleys, gas engines, folding machines, the Golden Gate paper cutter, Gordon, Cottrell and Washington presses, rollers, stapling machines and the Thorne typesetting machine, each with a short description and a price. The rest shows the company's copper-alloy type on the point system: body romans set with a passage on the future of California, then hundreds of display faces such as De Vinne, Bradley, Columbus and Erratick with sizes and font prices, scripts, borders, ornaments and a closing index.
Why read it now
Read today, the book is a lesson in selling a very large range to a trade buyer. Three things still hold. It is built for reference, not persuasion: alphabetical sections, a price on every item, an index, and terms stated plainly, which is what trade buyers still look for before they call a salesperson. It localizes a national stock with small moves: a regional title, San Francisco prices, a paper cutter named after the Golden Gate, specimen copy about California. And it asks for the budget before it quotes, which saves both sides a wasted estimate. The poem at the front begging printers not to cut up the book shows the real risk for any catalogue: it only sells while it stays whole on the shelf. What has dated: hot metal type and presses, and specimen lines that show letterforms but not how a face works in a real advertisement. Use: when you build a catalogue or price sheet for Gulf markets, keep one structure and localize the name, examples and prices for each city or country.
Passages worth keeping
The Type in this book is all made of our celebrated COPPER ALLOY METAL, on the POINT System, thereby insuring perfect justification.
الشركة تبدأ بميزتين تقنيتين يفهمهما الطابع فورًا: معدن أصلب يدوم، ومقاسات موحدة تجعل الأسطر تستقيم بدقة.
When types grow old, and fain / You would your stock renew, / Send us the number and the name
القصيدة ترجو الطابع أن يحتفظ بالكتاب، لأنه حين يحتاج إلى تجديد حروفه سيطلبها بالرقم والاسم المكتوبين فيه، فالكتالوج أداة إعادة طلب.
Estimates furnished in detail for newspaper and job offices or binderies. When asking for estimate state amount of money the selection is to be limited to.
عروض الأسعار مفصلة لتجهيز المطابع، لكن على العميل أن يذكر ميزانيته أولًا حتى يُبنى العرض في حدودها.
The Golden Gate Paper Cutter is intended to meet the wants of printers and others whose business demands a lever cutter, but who cannot as yet afford to invest in a high-priced machine.
منتج مصمم لشريحة محددة: من يحتاج القاطعة ولا يقدر بعد على الآلة الغالية، والاسم مأخوذ من معلم محلي يعرفه المشتري.
THE future prosperity and glory of California do not depend upon her beautiful climate nor upon an aristocracy of wealth, but rather upon an aristocracy of honesty and intelligence.
حتى نص العينات كُتب لقارئ من كاليفورنيا، يخاطب فخره بولايته، وهي طريقة بسيطة لجعل كتالوج عام يبدو محليًا.
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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