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Posted by John Nixon
- September 06, 2024, 08:45:58 AMQuote from: stafford on August 19, 2024, 10:05:18 AMAs I recall Palace Script 429 needed both a very unusual mould AND the 'Reverse Delivery Attachment' a set up I believe was also used for Arabic. Very uncommon bits of kit, I'm slightly surprised that Australia had such stuff (No offence intended).
A couple of the UK trade houses certainly had them, Yendalls at Risca and Mouldtype at Preston for example.
Prestons I think may have gone to Japan with all the rest of their stuff, Yendalls? goodness only knows.
Hi Stafford
Not only was Palace Script cast in Australia but also in New Zealand.
We have 2 complete Palace Script sets complete with all necessary attachments.
You will see from the list from the printing museum.org.nz that there are many choice fonts. Also check out the Composition list. We have 200 pdx bags of composition mats also to clean, sort and identify. Don't get me started on the amount of Linotype fonts also to do. Happy times.
Posted by John Nixon
- September 06, 2024, 08:39:53 AMQuote from: stafford on August 19, 2024, 10:11:24 AMHi, @John Nixon - I'd dearly like to see a list of those Supercaster mats you have found. Wether here
in the UK the Monotype 'Matrix Loan Library' as was will ever work again, I'm a shade uncertain.
But then someone on here may know ... ..
Hi Stafford
The current list of the faces at the printing museum.org are here:
http://www.theprintingmuseum.org.nz/assets/pm-monotype-display-matrix-library-web-copy2.pdf
This contains the nearly complete New Zealand and the 2 Australian Monotype lending libraries.
Cheers, John
Posted by Richard Lawrence
- September 04, 2024, 09:55:02 AMJust to confirm: I have looked up my copy of Chaundy, Barrett, and Batey: 'The Printing of Mathematics' 2/e, OUP, 1957 and the script listed there (as 11 pt) seems to match the pictures of mats posted by John Nixon.
It's not Palace (check the shape of the cap Q for instance). I have another book published by The William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia entitled: 'Mathematics in Type'. This company ran a similar system to OUP but based around Monotype Series 8. Their script caps are much more upright. Assuming the mats that John has are of New Zealand origin, then UK influence seems much more likely than US influence.
Richard Lawrence, Oxford, UK
It's not Palace (check the shape of the cap Q for instance). I have another book published by The William Byrd Press, Richmond, Virginia entitled: 'Mathematics in Type'. This company ran a similar system to OUP but based around Monotype Series 8. Their script caps are much more upright. Assuming the mats that John has are of New Zealand origin, then UK influence seems much more likely than US influence.
Richard Lawrence, Oxford, UK
Posted by David Bolton
- September 02, 2024, 08:36:11 PMAs Richard has just suggested, the mats are indeed for Mathematical use using Modern Extended series 7.
As it happens I have just cast mat serial 781A which is a script A, and which is identified as series 7 in 10pt. So hopefully the A in John's collection is also marked 781.
The full list, from 781A to 346Z for series 1 and series 7 is shown under Scripts and Miscellaneous Sorts in 'Monotype' Mathematical Sorts List by Arthur Phillips and published by the Monotype Corporation as a complement to the Monotype Recorder Vol 40 N0.4 1956: Setting Mathematics.
As it happens I have just cast mat serial 781A which is a script A, and which is identified as series 7 in 10pt. So hopefully the A in John's collection is also marked 781.
The full list, from 781A to 346Z for series 1 and series 7 is shown under Scripts and Miscellaneous Sorts in 'Monotype' Mathematical Sorts List by Arthur Phillips and published by the Monotype Corporation as a complement to the Monotype Recorder Vol 40 N0.4 1956: Setting Mathematics.
Posted by Richard Lawrence
- September 02, 2024, 09:10:27 AMI used to work on mathematics books on the publishing side of OUP. I made a study of the history of mathematical typesetting at Reading.
Modern Series 7 was the face used by OUP and one or two other printers for maths before the advent of the Monotype 4-line maths system. (I think the face was chosen by OUP as they had a huge number of special sorts for it already as it was used for the Dictionaries.)
Individual script letters (usually caps) are sometimes called for in maths setting. Might these mats be part of a maths collection, the face chosen to match the weight and so on of the Modern Series 7 around it? (Palace is quite light.)
Anyone using TeX/LaTeX, created by Donald Knuth, might note that Computer Modern that Knuth designed for digital setting of maths is modelled on Modern Series 7 which is the face he was used to seeing in 'properly' typeset maths books.
Modern Series 7 was the face used by OUP and one or two other printers for maths before the advent of the Monotype 4-line maths system. (I think the face was chosen by OUP as they had a huge number of special sorts for it already as it was used for the Dictionaries.)
Individual script letters (usually caps) are sometimes called for in maths setting. Might these mats be part of a maths collection, the face chosen to match the weight and so on of the Modern Series 7 around it? (Palace is quite light.)
Anyone using TeX/LaTeX, created by Donald Knuth, might note that Computer Modern that Knuth designed for digital setting of maths is modelled on Modern Series 7 which is the face he was used to seeing in 'properly' typeset maths books.
Posted by David Bolton
- August 20, 2024, 06:19:54 PMJust to re-iterate. The 280 shown is NOT the series number, but a serial number, allocated probably in chronological order by someone at Monotype, for the next design of a special letter to match series 7 (or whatever other series might have required it.)
The special letters are hardly ever shown on the official specimen sheets - which do indicate the 'normal' accented characters in a list along the bottom of the sheet. For some typefaces, such as Garamond, Monotype did issue a special specimen page showing the swash and (some of) the ligatured characters, all these being un-numbered, and some layout sheets also identify some of the numbered special letters, which are indeed also listed on the specimen page, e.g. for Bell series 341.
It is annoying that Monotype never issued a full list of all the 'special' characters after the one they issued pre 1931, but as there are some 26000 of the letters I suppose it would have been asking too much!
None of this answers the question of what face (if any) the design of these particular special letters is based. If seen as something in its own right, Monotype might have assigned an L series number to the letters, much as they did for the Pitman ITA letters that match Ehrhardt, and indeed those all have serial numbers as shown on the specimen page (assuming those are part of L211 and L219).
The specimen sheet does not show the L series number, however. I do not know what series number is stamped on the matrices - hopefully the L number and not the actual Ehrhardt number, being 453 and 573.
The special letters are hardly ever shown on the official specimen sheets - which do indicate the 'normal' accented characters in a list along the bottom of the sheet. For some typefaces, such as Garamond, Monotype did issue a special specimen page showing the swash and (some of) the ligatured characters, all these being un-numbered, and some layout sheets also identify some of the numbered special letters, which are indeed also listed on the specimen page, e.g. for Bell series 341.
It is annoying that Monotype never issued a full list of all the 'special' characters after the one they issued pre 1931, but as there are some 26000 of the letters I suppose it would have been asking too much!
None of this answers the question of what face (if any) the design of these particular special letters is based. If seen as something in its own right, Monotype might have assigned an L series number to the letters, much as they did for the Pitman ITA letters that match Ehrhardt, and indeed those all have serial numbers as shown on the specimen page (assuming those are part of L211 and L219).
The specimen sheet does not show the L series number, however. I do not know what series number is stamped on the matrices - hopefully the L number and not the actual Ehrhardt number, being 453 and 573.
Posted by stafford
- August 19, 2024, 10:24:56 AMThis gets more interesting the more I look. Albion is quite right, its not Palace, but another copperplate script.
Looking closely, looks much like a match for SB's Imperial. Mow Palace 429 had been properly and legally licensed to the Monotype Drawing Office by Stephenson Blake, so its conceivable that Mono had a look at another lighter face as a commercial possibility, maybe trial strikes?
Looking closely, looks much like a match for SB's Imperial. Mow Palace 429 had been properly and legally licensed to the Monotype Drawing Office by Stephenson Blake, so its conceivable that Mono had a look at another lighter face as a commercial possibility, maybe trial strikes?
Posted by stafford
- August 19, 2024, 10:11:24 AMHi, @John Nixon - I'd dearly like to see a list of those Supercaster mats you have found. Wether here
in the UK the Monotype 'Matrix Loan Library' as was will ever work again, I'm a shade uncertain.
But then someone on here may know ...
in the UK the Monotype 'Matrix Loan Library' as was will ever work again, I'm a shade uncertain.
But then someone on here may know ...
Posted by stafford
- August 19, 2024, 10:05:18 AMAs I recall Palace Script 429 needed both a very unusual mould AND the 'Reverse Delivery Attachment' a set up I believe was also used for Arabic. Very uncommon bits of kit, I'm slightly surprised that Australia had such stuff (No offence intended).
A couple of the UK trade houses certainly had them, Yendalls at Risca and Mouldtype at Preston for example.
Prestons I think may have gone to Japan with all the rest of their stuff, Yendalls? goodness only knows.
A couple of the UK trade houses certainly had them, Yendalls at Risca and Mouldtype at Preston for example.
Prestons I think may have gone to Japan with all the rest of their stuff, Yendalls? goodness only knows.
Posted by Geoff Quadland
- August 18, 2024, 03:29:34 AMIt seems to me unlikely that it would be a caps only titling font because according to the guidelines of typography, formal scripts like that are never supposed to be set in all caps. An all cap line like that would have very low legibility.
Posted by Albion49
- August 17, 2024, 04:11:55 PMIt's definitely one of the scripts, but Monotype Palace Script (Series 429) differs from that shown in subtle details.
Posted by Carsten Jegminat
- August 17, 2024, 03:42:13 PMFonts in Use: Palace Script
International index of hot metal typefaces, Compiled by Hans Reichardt:
Index of Typefaces
International index of hot metal typefaces, Compiled by Hans Reichardt:
Index of Typefaces
Posted by Dave Hughes
- August 17, 2024, 11:28:07 AMThanks for your input Stafford.
I did a quick Google search for Monotype Modern Extended and came up with this:
I've got to agree that the mats pictured look more like Palace Script.
I did a quick Google search for Monotype Modern Extended and came up with this:
I've got to agree that the mats pictured look more like Palace Script.
Posted by Stafford
- August 17, 2024, 10:05:39 AMOddly I thought that the actual characters look rather like Monotype Palace Script series 429, Series 280 is of course Tamil, and it doesn't look like that at all!
Posted by Dave Hughes
- August 15, 2024, 08:51:09 PMQuote from: John Nixon on August 15, 2024, 09:35:08 AMWe have discovered 61 more boxes of supercaster mats in Australia.
Don't forget where to come if you need more mats identifying John
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