Hamilton Wood Type identification

I came across a very useful bit of information that may be helpful to those trying to identify the names of typefaces offered by the Hamilton Wood Type Company.

Hamilton over time acquired many of its competitors and incorporated their designs into its own catalogs. Most of these eventually only were identified as numbers, which in itself doesn’t give you a name, BUT Hamilton did have a system that used specific series numbers to identify which competitor originated those designs.

Here are the series numbers and the corresponding originators:
(2000) Tubbs
(3000) Morgan & Wilcox
(200) (600) and (4000) Page
(5000) Wells

So, if you have a design No. 641 or No. 4006, they would have originated with Page. If you have design No. 3164 it would have been a Morgan & Wilcox design. These series numbers should at least point you in the right direction to research the original name of the faces since you can now identify the original manufacturer.

I do not recall whom I received this information from, but it is extremely handy and well worth sharing with everyone.

Rick

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