may be of some help:
http://www.typophile.com/node/9913

Na, the page is gone. Any other suggestions? Anyone?
I presume it's a mathematical sign and 'not' to be used in running texts. Or will it?

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®ené

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No, with the introduction of the Euro, it's an obsolete currency sign (ditto Peseta, Lira, Franc, DM and a few others).

Historical texts may still refer to florins. It is still usefull in text. For instance: "When I was a child, a pack of gum cost just 2 florins. Now I see the same candy for 75 cents!"

There are lots of reasons to need to print the florin symbol. It has just has fallen out of contemporary use…

In Germany, when someone wants to imply how expensive something is, they say houw much it would have cost in Deutsche Marks (2 DM = 1 Euro), i.e., "You can afford that car! It cost 70,000 Marks!"

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Aruba

may be of some help:
http://www.typophile.com/node/9913

I think I've found the page that that article points to, although I didn't see anything about a florin in it... hope it helps!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/gallery/image/0,8543,-10104318432,00.html

Besides what Dan said, two other reasons to still worry about the Florin:
1) Pretty major: it's part of ASCII-8.
2) Pretty minor: Some people -especially on Mac- use it to mean "folder".

hhp

And some people still just like it. Sniff.

Actually though, I did get to the node/thread - so it does exist. I was using firefox. You might need a different browser.

But the question of how best to space the florin hasn't been adressed here or in the other thread. I guess you could just use your own judgement, but it being historical & all it would be ideal to know what the convention might be.

Hoefler? Any sage words?

Unrelated - Hrant, what does the middle h stand for?

Well, if your font has [an option for] monowidth numerals, the Florin should have that width too, which sort of nicely constrains you. Then it's a matter of taking into account which side of a numeral it might abut against, with the other side being almost certainly a blank. But a quick search on Google* for "ƒ50", "ƒ 50", "50ƒ" and "50 ƒ" seems to show that although the prefix position is more common -and as far as I know the standard- the suffix position cannot be ignored, because we're here to make settings look good and work well, not to try to dictate usage of language; this is by looking at the number of hits for each.** So I'd say you have to mind both sides (but really with numerals only). Think kerning.

* Which also reveals some interesting indepedent uses of the Florin!

** I actually use Google for spellchecking.

My middle initial stands for Hratch, my father. And my son's name is Hrad.
The root "hoor" means "fire" in Armenian. But they're nothing like me.

hhp

I wouldn't be surprised if some people use it as the italic f denoting "function" in math, especially since it's in ASCII.

If it's mostly used in combination with numerals, the spacing/kerning is quite easy. I like the glyph, especially because I'm Dutch. Perhaps I can find a good function for it later... I'll keep it in for sure.

Regards,
®ené

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"it’s an obsolete currency sign (ditto Peseta, Lira, Franc, DM and a few others)."

Sorry to break in, (and I'm not sure about the others, BUT, The Florin is NOT Dead. The Dutch, it seems, had colonies. These colonies are not part of the European Euro deal, and so both currency and advertising are still using florin.

where in the world am I!? :)

The florin was used to denote the Dutch Guilder ("gulden").
Former Dutch colony Surinam switched from the Surinam Guilder to the Surinam Dollar.
The Dutch Antilles use the Netherlands Antillian Guilder (ANG). That's still called a florin according to
http://www.xe.com/iso4217.htm
where you may also note that no other currency nowadays uses florin as a denomination. (Though they could use the symbol...).

One should always look beyond one's ...

http://www.xe.com/symbols.htm

The symbol 'florin' is associated with the Dutch Antilles and the Netherlands (obsolete).
A lot of currencies use the dollar sign... (is that another example of cultural imperialism?)

Yea, there's not much left over from our nice Florin sign. I always liked it.
I'll at least keep it in the font.

Thanx for the help.

Regards,
®ené

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