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Recent Specimens.

Baber & Rawlings, Auckland, have sent us specimen sheets of the latest novelties to hand from the Fann-st. Foundry. First, we note a new design—a great primer « Upright » script. It is not actually upright, but the slope is so slight that there are no kerns. The letter is as easily set as ordinary roman, and as durable. As the face is bold and clear, and free from any attempt at flourish, it should become very popular. There are also six pages of brass-rule specimens, including many faces of « combination » rule borders after the fashion introduced by Messrs Stephenson & Blake. We note that the patterns are cut to pica—an important consideration, and the combinations are put up in convenient-sized founts. Many of the faces are new, and effective designs can be readily made up. An assortment of appropriate corners is put up with each fount.

Messrs Marder, Luse, & Co. exhibit a series of « Ink-spots, » 13 characters, nonpareil to four-line pica. (See Typo, p. 41.)

Barnhardt Bros. & Spindler exhibit almost equally crazy combinations. The « Amhaggar » ornaments, 24-point, 2 sorts, irregular lines; the « Star » ornaments, 2 sorts on the same body—ragged lines radiating from a central blot; the « Astral » border, one character, somewhat the same in style—all evidences of perverted ingenuity.

The « Foster » ornaments, series 2, by a founder whose name does not appear, are something like the « Amhaggar, » but not quite so wild in conception. There is an attempt to introduce variety by half-tints, and there is some degree of regularity in the border-sorts. There are 10 characters, 12- and 24-point. The design is more like calicoprinters' work than typographic ornament.

The Typographic Advertiser, No 129 (« Springtime, 1888, ») is to hand, and is disappointing. Since the fine old Johnson Foundry passed into the hands of a company, it has done little more than imitate the styles of younger houses. There is a « Type-writer, » in imitation of the work of the Remington machine. These ugly styles have had a run in the States, but outside of America are unsaleable. « Koster, » in four sizes, is apparently an imitation of one of the Cleveland Foundry styles, the caps modified and extravagantly flourished. « Archaic, » is another of the mock old-styles—anachronisms in design, and devoid of grace or beauty. « Ronaldson Title Slope » is a heavy italic, with exaggerated old-style features. « Parsee » is a fantastic face, described as « neoterical. »

Messrs Müller & Hölemann, Dresden, have brought out in three sizes, a set of flourished script initials. They resemble in some measure the ornamented initials of the « Spencerian » script, being decorated with miniature birds, insects, and other figures, in outline. They are engraved with much delicacy and beauty.

Messrs J. John Söhne, Hamburg, send us a specimen sheet of their combination border No. 5 (37 characters, from 6- to 24-point.) It is a very artistic production, in the classical style of floral ornament so popular in Germany. Instead of being, like most of the recent combinations, a white pattern on solid or stippled ground, the designs are in pure silhouette. The combination is simple, useful, and very effective.

From Herr Poppelbaum, Frankfurt-am-Main, we have No. 6 of Typographische Neuigkeiten. (No. 5 has not come to hand.) On the wrapper is shewn a beautiful 36-point border, the « Maurische, » —a white pattern, with stippled ground. It contains only two sorts—a square running piece and a square corner. The junction marks shew slightly—a defect almost unavoidable in a stippled ground. Besides some American faces, there is shewn a good heavy German Text in nine sizes, and eleven sizes of « Steinschrift, » a well-cut sanserif with lower-case.