Columbus / American Italic

I’m looking for Columbus and/or American Italic, and/or the corresponding “Initials” (swash caps) fonts.

Why? Well, I’m doing a digital revival of these typefaces under the name “Cristoforo,” and would love some extra specimens, or actual fonts: for printing from, for digitizing, and for measuring!

(To learn about my revival project, and to see the typeface if you are unsure which one it is, see here: http://kck.st/KJk3Hy)

I’d love to acquire the metal type, but if not, to get some fresh printed samples of the full character set. (Best if set between solid boxes so I can also get the sidebearings of each letter.)

Thanks for any advice or info anyone has.

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I have a complete font of 24pt Columbus but it is very well used and won’t give an impression of of scanning quality. Unfortunately I have only one intact “g” in the case. The rest all have the kern neatly snapped off, thus making for very limited application. I think my font is BB&S, but would have to check. It has two rounded nicks.

I have also seen it and the swash caps in a wood type catalogue.

Derek
Derek

Hi Derek,

Thanks anyway. Though even a really worn version could be used to check the original spacing, I should think.

BTW, the original type is Mackellar, Smiths & Jordan (later ATF). The wood type version seems to be a derivative of the metal type, and at least in some cases the shapes seem slightly degraded, from what I’ve seen.