Help with type

Sans Serif is the name of a specific typeface. It has also come to be a generic term for Gothic type. Much like kleenex has become a name for tissue.
The Gothic faces have very few distinctive features to aid in identification. The W is the only one of some help.
One of the wizards will get it soon.

From what little I can see, it looks like Helvetica, perhaps a condensed version. Can you post a photo of all the characters you have or better still, can you pull a proof of them, scan it and post that?
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Michael Hurley
Titivilus Press
Memphis, TN

On second look, it may be News Gothic (sold in digital form today as Franklin Gothic. Oddly, the original Franklin Gothic is now called Franklin Gothic Bold). The S looks more like News/Franklin than Helvetica.
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Michael Hurley
Titivilus Press
Memphis, TN

I’m no expert but it does look like news gothic, where is Rick when you need him. If it is news gothic let me know what size, I have some in different sizes, nothing compete.

I’ve been away from the computer for about a week now. Went to the annual APA Wayzgoose in Two Rivers, WI at the Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum and it was SPECTACULAR. I pity the fools that didn’t attend because it was truly a special event.

Just recovering from sensory overload and getting back into the swing of things. This face is way too thin to be News Gothic. It is also NOT Helvetica. My initial guess would be that it might be one of the Univers fonts. I’ll get into the library later and try to confirm that.

Rick

OK. Went downstairs to the shop and I think this might be Univers 57. I actually have a font of Univers 57 in 48pt. I picked up a boatload of Univers fonts in the early 90’s from a typography shop. Didn’t really “desire it” but it was one of those “take everything” deals. Post a picture of some of the lowercase characters and I can confirm this for you. There should be NO pinmark on this type.

I would be very willing to sell you my font to complete yours at a very reasonable price. It could be shipped via a USPS Flat Rate box so postage won’t be much either.

Rick

OK. Went downstairs to the shop and I think this might be Univers 57. I actually have a font of Univers 57 in 48pt. I picked up a boatload of Univers fonts in the early 90’s from a typography shop. Didn’t really “desire it” but it was one of those “take everything” deals. Post a picture of some of the lowercase characters and I can confirm this for you. There should be NO pinmark on this type.

I would be very willing to sell you my font to complete yours at a very reasonable price. It could be shipped via a USPS Flat Rate box so postage won’t be much either.

Rick

From my recollection of Univers, which we used to use quite a bit in ads in the early 60s, the ends of strokes on most letters are horizontal, as they are in a specimen of Univers I found online. The ends of the stroke of this “S” are not horizontal, so I am going to guess this is not Univers, but a somewhat more condensed version could have different terminals, I guess. The “W” also looks to me to be kind of wide in proportion to the other letters. More of the alphabet to compare would be helpful.

Bob

The font in question is News Gothic.

Michael

There is no such thing as Franklin Gothic Bold. There was Franklin Gothic, Franklin Gothic Condensed, Franklin Gothic Extra Condensed, and Franklin Gothic Wide. Theo Rehak told me that he watched all the Franklin Gothic matrices get dumped into barrels by the scrappers at the ATF sale.

devil tail is right on the franklin, my last real job was hand setting type and we set quite a bit of franklin.

Thanks, inky, Michael, dickg, Rick, Bob, and Devils Tail for weighing in on this. I thought sans serif might be a generic name even though it’s listed in the M&H catalogue. I’ll head down to the studio in the morning and post a photo of more type (upper & lower). I’ve made some mistakes in ordering type recently (still learning), and I don’t want to make more. I really appreciate all the help.

Devil’s Tail, note that I specifically said that’s what it’s called in digital form (at least from ITC). They seem to have taken all the Gothics MFB worked on (Franklin, News, Lightline, etc.) and lumped them all together under the family name Franklin, I guess to make the family larger and more saleable to modern graphic designers. I mention this because it can make looking for comparative specimens online more difficult.

Even more confusingly, Monotype sell a digital font family they call News Gothic which seems to be largely the same kind of thing, with bold weights very similar to Franklin Gothic and lights that look similar to Lightline Gothic.

Scmorgan, stealing font designs from each other was quite common among the big foundries and composing equipment companies in the old days, just as cloning font designs digitally is common today. It wouldn’t surprise me if what M&H sell was called San Serif by whoever ripped the design off from ATF. It’s still likely exactly the same as News Gothic or perhaps Lightline Gothic.
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Michael Hurley
Titivilus Press
Memphis, TN

Then the folks at ITC are just ignorant, which is a disappointment considering that selling type is their business. And yes, type stealing has always been important in the industry. My favorite is Stephenson Blake’s Bologna which was “borrowed” from a William Dana Orcutt face called Humanistic, which had been cast by ATF as a private face, then ATF (not realizing they had cast it originally) stole it from SB and renamed it Verona (because American printers would call it Baloney) which was the name of a type that SB had stolen from ATF which was originally named Munder Venezian. It’s hard to make this stuff up.

Munder Venezian and S-B’s Verona are an exact match except for the Italic. But ATF’s Verona is not Munder Venezian or S-B’s Verona. Paul’s comparisons are a bit confusing. I have the 18 pt Munder Venezian mats that Theo gave me and the Dale Guild has the 12 pt MV mats and I’ve had several castings made of the 12 pt in the past. Rich Hopkins holds the ATF Verona mats and several years ago we had the 14 pt cast at the Dale Guild.

Fritz

It gets confusing, the way types and names were bandied around between different foundries. ATF’s Verona (1951) is taken from Stephenson Blake’s Bologna (1946), which had been stolen from Orcutt’s Humanistic (1904), which had been cast by ATF about 50 years earlier. Stephenson Blake’s Verona (1923) was stolen from BB&S/ATF Munder Venezian (c. 1922) except for the italic. The American Munder Venezian was originally shown as Laclede Oldstyle by the Laclede Foundry in St. Louis, and was purchased, and re-cut by BB&S. It was designed and cut by Robert Wiebking.

Since this has sort of shifted to Munder Venezian, I picked up a complete run of it with the italic and some bold back about 1980 when we emptied out a shop in the San Juan Islands in Washington. BB&S had just a few years to cast this type before ATF shut the foundry down around 1929 and the face was dropped from their offerings. But ATF held onto the matrices. At the 1993 ATF auction, Theo Rehak took a break from the goings on and sat down on a stack of mat galleys headed for the barrels and wondered what he was resting his hand on and it was the 12 pt Munder mats. The next galley down was the 18 pt mats. So, he offered the auctioneer $20 for the 2 galleys and he became the owner. In one of my first discussions with Theo I asked him about the type face and I soon had a nice sorts order of new 12 pt for my case. We now offer it in fonts and it has seen some interest. Munder Venezian has become one of my favorite faces but getting more is now a distinct problem.

Fritz

I’m still in the process of sorting, so I realized I don’t have lower case for these—several of each letter but missing some. Here’s one of each of what I have. Thanks…now I’ll need to sort the other batch of U&L for Record Courier. I’m in deep and learning so much. Thanks,
Susan

photo (86).JPG

That really does look a lot more like News Gothic, with the additional letters to compare. Looks like Michael was right. Good call!

Bob

Great. Thanks so much!

News Gothic it is! The Q seals the deal and the terminals in the S. I simply brought up a cap W to compare with the photo and even the shallow shoulder between the bottom legs looked identical in Univers 57.

Rick

what point size is your type, I have some odd news gothic letters hanging around, I’d be happy to ship them to you for the postage.

Thanks, dickg, sending contact info now.
Thanks, Rick—I can see this identification stuff is complicated—much to learn.

Bear in mind there’s the ATF foundry News Gothic, and the Monotype News Gothic, the latter still available at M&H. You don’t want to mix them together.

Ah. Thanks, that’s a huge help, parallel_imp. I have some sorting and thinking to do.

I just shipped Susan a new font of 48 pt ATF News Gothic 338 caps that is a match for her type. In talking with her we verified the series number was on her cap H and the nick and bottom groove match ATF. She has also ordered spacing from M&H so I think she is on the right track. Beginners need to be very careful when buying type off the internet as her original purchase was from a listing on esty and she ended up paying a lot for not much. Much of the stuff on ebay is junk and over priced, and as Michael Babcock’s postings on packaging type show most of these people will destroy otherwise good type by how they ship it. In these cases, ignorance of the seller is not bliss but akin to a criminal act. In the rush to buy type, and with it the enthusiasm that often throws good judgment to the wind, I suggest asking people you can trust to verify what it is that you’re about to plunk down hard earned money for.

Incidentally, having worked with type for several eons, seeing a picture of it not upside down as seen when setting it in a stick throws me off. All my standing type forms, cuts, etc, are all placed in a galley that way and I can find stuff with ease—but put it right side up and I’m lost. I presently have about 1000 galleys with lots of stuff on them and there has to be consistency in the storage method.

Fritz

I do appreciate all the help from all of you. I’m determined to do this right. Thanks again…