Recent Specimens

Conner's Sons, New York, send us No. 1 of a new series of the Typographic Messenger, which has now completed its sixtieth year. We note several improvements in style. The dreadful « Cosmopolitan, » in which the last two issues were set, has been abandoned, and an ordinary old-face takes its place. A new and pretty ornamented, with lower-case, by Schelter & Giesecke, is shewn under the name of « Pembroke, » in four sizes. « Sirius, » is a heavy lined old-style, closely resembling MacKellar's « Caxtonian. » It is shewn from 12- to 36-point. « Hamburg Text, » already noted, now appears in nine sizes,—6- to 28-point. « Half-Title, » 6- to 12-point, is a bold roman, caps only, with a character of its own.

Farmer, Little, & Co. shew seven sizes of « Spread, » a letter closely resembling Caslon's Expanded Enchorial.

« Pacific » is the name of a recent and beautiful style, with lowercase and word ornaments, by the Dickinson Foundry.

The Central Foundry shew a new style of « Type-Writer, » pica size, an imitation of the work of the Earle machine.

The Illinois Typefounding Company have begun to add lowercase to their capital « Clipper » series, already noted in our January number.

The Cincinnati Typefoundry has added some new borders on 6-, 9-, and 12-point bodies to its well-known and useful series. The new styles work well in combination with the old, and shew some beautiful artistic effects in black and white and intermediate tints. A large variety of borders from 6- to 30-point are shewn, in the latest German style—a heavy-faced rule, decorated at intervals with sprays of leaf and blossom in silhouette. A fine series of « Gothic Wide » with and without lower-case, is shewn—the auxiliary ornaments are rather large. There is a series of « Light Runic » (Latin, with appropriate lower-case), clean and sharp-cut, a beautiful style; a good « Antique Condensed » with lower-case, eight sizes; and an excellent lining series, in thirteen sizes, of « Gothic Condensed » (sanserif)—as good a series of this style as we have seen anywhere.

It is some time since we have had any specimens direct from Schelter & Giesecke; but we see some of their novelties in our continental exchanges. « Gothic Artistic, » is a free and neat letter, with lower-case, in many sizes. The « Curtain » border, a free design with solid black background, needs only to be compared with the Cleveland Foundry's « Ragged Edgen—on the same principle exactly—to demonstrate the artistic superiority of the German type designer. Border series 73 is large and solid, something like the « Holbein, » but with much fewer pieces. Border 1404 has a « made-up » appearance. It is on a 12-point body, and this is a fair imitation of of its style. Two series of pretty silhouette vignettes, 12- and 18-point, containing altogether 36 sorts, are also among the novelties produced by this house.

Messrs Bauer & Co., Stuttgart, have brought out an exquisite border for one or two colors, under the name of the « Alhambra. » There are 16 characters, which can be supplied separately if required. Three pieces constitute the characteristic part of the border; these are repeated in a smaller size; and are so designed as to produce the effect of three colors—white, black, and tint,—when printed in one color. The sixteen pieces really constitute six borders, which can be used separately or in combination. It is in the most perfect taste, and appropriate to any kind of ornamental work, large or small. The specimen-sheet to hand is a beautiful piece of color-printing.