When was Caslon last cast by Caslon?

In 1937 SB&Co. acquired the Caslon company and the matrices, if you have a SB&Co. catalogue the one with the red cover their Old Faces are in that with the history of the take over, can’t quite make out from your picture which one it is,

John

Thanks (John and Liz Sones) - I think it is ‘Caslon Old Face’.

Do you know if SB&Co cast the type with the Caslon mark after 1937?

Many thanks
Carl

May well have done because it says in the book in order to preserve the name Caslon they formed a new Company H. W. Caslon Ltd. with headquarters at 33 Aldersgate Street, London, E.C.1, where SB&Co. have been located for more than half a century.

At the same time the Sheffield Foundry took the name of the Caslon Letter Foundry.

Whether they put the Caslon mark on on the type with the mats they acquired I can’t really say,

John

This isn’t easy to answer. Caslon’s closure in 1937 resulted in the creation of a new company called Caslon Machinery Ltd. The foundry business was essentially handed over to Stephenson Blake, who did continue casting Caslon Old Face, but probably not with a Caslon pin mark. I believe that SB acquired the matrices but not the moulds. There was a subsequent dispute between the two companies, referred to in The Caslon Circular dated Autumn 1938 in which Caslon claimed that Stephenson Blake had acquired only one third of the original matrices. They claimed that sorts for other Caslon Old Face sizes could only be obtained from Caslon Machinery Ltd and that they would continue casting the face themselves.

Original Caslon (2).jpg