Berthold Baskerville Item Identification

[David Eaves]

Please could forum members tell me what this item is and how it was used?

It was passed on to me a few years ago by a print lecturer friend who is now deceased and in whose possession it had been for several years.

References on the item indicate it was manufactured by H. Berthold AG Berlin/Stuttgart and the frame is stamped 044056 and identified as 850 017 Baskerville font.

Size is approx 95x63mm.

[Dave Hughes]

Hi David, thanks for posting, I hope that this little mystery can be solved.

To be honest, I'm in the dark about what they are.

What materials are they made of? Is it opaque paper in a wooden frame?

[Mechanic]

They are font grids for the machine described.

In Europe, the company of Berthold had no experience in developing hot-metal typesetting equipment, but being one of the largest German type foundries, they applied themselves to the transference.

Berthold successfully developed its Diatype (1960), Diatronic (1967), and ADS (1977) machines, which led the European high-end typesetting market for decades.

[Mechanic]

Here is a better photo:

[Carsten Jegminat]

Here you can see, how eight of them were placed in the holder, which was then placed in the typesetting unit.

Holder for Bertholds typeface grids (my Flickr folder)

[David Eaves]

Dave, the frame is black painted metal and the Interior with the font has sort of a glass mirrored finish that when held up to the light is in negative format with clear transparent letters.

[Ian Lewis]

The original photos show Berthold Diatronic Fonts.

I operated the CPS1200 for many years and it produced the greatest quality available for the time. Favoured machine for typesetting advertisements.

The ability to draw rules and forms with type imposition made it a very useable machine. Total output area 305 x 305mm.