Need help with Identification

Your museum likely has a library and may have these essential reference books:
- American Wood Type, 1828-1900 by Rob Roy Kelly (
- American Metal typefaces of the Twentieth Century by Mac McGrew

For wood type you may have to consult several manufacturers’ catalogs, but McGrew should nearly every face you’ll encounter.

The second face is Cooper Black Condensed and the third is Runic

Better yet for wood type:
The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection: A History and Catalog by David Shields

Hamilton’s Specimens of Wood Type Faces. 17th ed, reprint by Shooting Star Press

I assume your examples are all wood type. I would give a generic name to number 1, French Antique Condensed, and to number 4, Antique Tuscan. Often the Capital A on wood type has a manufacturer’s stamp on the side. Check for this. If you find a mark, you may find a type specimen catalog from that company online. Most wood type designs were made by more than one company, and they may have named them differently or with a number.
I agree with the resources already mentioned. For nineteenth century metal type, a copy of “Nineteenth Century American Designers and Engravers of Type” by William Loy ( Oak Knoll Press, Johnston and Saxe, editors) is very useful.

Thank you all. I have all those books, but I still sometimes can’t match them. And I have been looking through thousands of pages of online catalogs. In Cooper Black, I noticed that the A is different, so I wasn’t sure it was the correct variation.

I think I have now identified one of the group.

I am working with 100s of unidentified faces. I don’t have the type myself just a digital binder of proofs.

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Wood type is not as precisely made as metal type. It is not cast in a mold, but each piece was made individually by a human hand (unless it was die-cut) following a template using a router-pantograph, often with hand finished details. Because of this, slight variations in characters exist. The pantograph could also allow the router operator to make a typeface more expanded or condensed as needed. Other companies that made the same design may have altered the design slightly or changed certain characters to make their face different. Sometimes the characters of the same name from the same company have different form in different sizes. There are lots of variables here, so if you want the exact name given by the maker for your type, you need to know name of the company that made it and compare the type with their specimens of that size, and even then it may not be an exact match. That’s the challenge and the fun of wood type ID.
Incidentally, your No. 2 type is Cooper Black Condensed, No. 780:
https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AEJNVBLT5HWRKX83/pages/A5LIGPEXQ...

Agree with the other IDs.

#3 is called Runic.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/6576805125/in/album-7215762860...

Thank you, everyone. I appreciate it a lot.

I’m confused by this one. It is made by Empire Type Foundry but I can’t find anything that matches it through them. I found a Hamilton I thought was close.

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