Better Pics Of Cyrillic Mats — Help ID

Sorry, here is the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/116243070057821966877/2ndLinoPics?feat=direc...

Chris,

Looking at the pictures you’ve posted, I have the following few observations.

What can be made out of the label in German reads:

Russian-Excelsior Mattes
8268R - Double alphabet font
… completely compatible with Handset types supplied…

The set has both regular and bold mats, but is far from complete, appearing to contain only the last letters of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet and figures. I see only lower-case characters. Also, I can’t quite make out the top two rows in your photograph, so I don’t know which letters are there. There is hardly enough room, however, to accommodate the rest of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. On the other hand, it is possible that this set was meant to be used in tandem with other mats from the Linotypes Latin Excelsior fonts. This doesn’t seem likely to me, though, since the number of corresponding letters between the two alphabets wouldn’t really justify the trouble entailed in combining the two sets of mats. In any case, it doesn’t look like there’s enough room in the box for all of the non-corresponding letters. Perhaps someone like “parallel_imp” who actually composed on a Russian linotype could help with that question.

Also interesting is the fact that your set contains the characetrs abrogated by the spelling reforms in the Soviet Union in 1918. They were thus most likely made for an emigre Russian community (as your initial post suggests). Russian enclaves outside of the Soviet Union used the pre-1918 Russian orthography well into the 20th century. Indeed, a few small Russian groups still use the older letters.

Sorry I can only help with some of the details about the alphabet represented by these mats and not the actual Linotype history.

Best - Denis