Two line small pica fatface M

[Dave Hughes]

I've been doing a few night shifts recently (2200-0600) and they drag!!!

However, the internet is at hand and I've discovered lots of letterpress-related pictures on Flickr - a lot of it is pictures of wedding invitations etc. but I found this picture posted by Alan Brignull most interesting:



Alan says:

To celebrate one thousand visitors to my photostream page, here's an M from one of the older founts in the Hedgehog Press collection. When I acquired it among a lot of other stuff it was labelled 'worn out Bodoni' but it's older than that, more like the mid-19th century Thorowgood. There's no pin-mark and some letters show flow marks from casting in a hand mould. It's on a pre-point system body, about 22pt which would have been 'two line small pica'.
As you see, it's been well used (who knows what posters and handbills it played a part in?) but it's just usable still if you like the 'distressed' look. I can't imagine anyone getting this attached to a computer font file in centuries to come.

You can see Alan's profile, and more pics here:

http://www.flickr.com/people/8659556@N02/