Hello
i am looking for what faces would have been used by clock makers / toy makers / mechanics.machinists during late industrial revolution LONDON. around early 1800s. i would like to find what faces where used to stamp makers names OR used for words on the products.
thank you
Do you have any images showing such markings?
More a topic for an industrial archaeologist than a typophile. So my comments here are based on impressions rather than firm evidence.
Any markings would be custom lettering rather than a typeface.
If the marking is engraved in metal I would expect something with thin lines and serifs. The taste for Sans Serif markings may have been deferred until the development of methods to use steel punches to place letters and numbers on metal. I don't know when this was developed, but my impression is that this may be a later development.
IIRC metal castings sometimes included a name, but I don't know when the practice began. For technical reasons these could not include fine details.
As for lettering fashions in the early 1800s, this was the heyday of the high contrast Bodonis and Fatfaces. If a fancy letter was desired, it may have consisted of a Fatface with ornamented designs within the thick part of the stroke.
If the markings were painted I expect that they could be as simple or flourished as the maker wished.
Don