I think the font is Sacker's Light Classic Roman from Agfa that has had a stroke added to bold it, and it has been stretched to 125%. The bottom line is my re-creation done that way with 17PT type.

Aw shucks! I feel the same about all of you. Thanks.

Mike I saw this one over at MyFonts and told him to post it here, I knew you'd get it. My question is this originally a metal face?

I'm not sure, but I think the whole Sackers series (and some others, too) are based on steel die engraving lettering styles. I know very little of the technique, but it's not type. I think it involved some kind of template/pantograph system.

Mark, the reason I ask is because alot of samples lately seem to have the same response that a stroke has been placed on the type, what I'm thinking is some of the samples are pre digitalized and are hot metal stamped envelopes and the process of stamping changes the appearance of the letter width. Then add a bad scan.

Mark & Dan, you might be interested in this quote from an e-mail I recently received from a long-time graphic designer:

"Yes, old engraving companies in Washington DC still use the pantograph for
engraving. The process is very simple: the alpahabet was machined on heavy
steel plates: upper and lowercase; numbers and all the other stuff
(ampersands, etc.). I wrote out the copy backwards in pencil on a long
continuous paper tape. For each letter of each word and punctuation I would
trace it from the steel plate. There was a little gauge where I set the
leading. To find the middle of the plate I used dividers (which is the
reason I don't measure for anything -- I just find the middle and divide in
half) -- okay so while I'm tracing the letters and moving the steel plate to
each letter another thing, the stylus is etching the letters lightly on
coated steel or copper plate. There was something I used to size the letters
to, probably another lever. It was a contraption for sure. After the plate
was etched it was dropped briefly into a vat of acid. The brown stuff wash
away and there was a light line for the engraver to follow. So the engraver,
a very old man, popped the loop onto his eye, grabbed his engraving tools
and carved the steel or copper plate. Then the plates would go downstairs to
the plate stamping machine. They would strap the plate to the bottom of this
huge shaft that probably weighed a ton, and let it mash down on the paper.
Voila: engraving. These men I worked with were absolutely great titans of a
long lost age: skilled, patient, accurate beyond the beyond. They taught me
my work ethic."

She also worked for years with Compugraphic film type setting equipment. I was amazed to learn we both attended the same high school in Queens NY for at least one year at the same time (1961), so I guess that tells you neither of us is a 'Spring chicken'.

I was wondering the same thing [referring to Daniel's post]. Engraved printing can look a bit heavy compared to a digital font. The example here and also the one I identified as Serlio in another thread are shown in an engravers catalog I happen to have, and they do look more like the scans people are posting for identification. The names don't correspond with the digital fonts (Serlio = Bold Architect Roman, Sackers Roman = Light Artchitect Roman) but they are clearly the same styles. Here's a scan:

Very cool Mike, I suspect we almost have to ask a little more about each sample. I made a logo for Credit Suisse's 50th anniversary of doing business in the US and if I were to scan it you might be fooled by the font because the printing process we used on the promotional materals were engraving, stamping and embossing and offset printing. Each process changes the appearance of the finished work.

Dan, I agree it would be good for people to give us more information, particularly the age of the material it was scanned from. Does anyone know if the 'instructions' for this Board tells them anything like that? (Judging from the 'What is this font?' titles, I can see not many people read the instructions, but still it would be nice to have them try to help us along.)

On the other hand, the questions are usually asked (I think) from the perspective of someone wanting a (digital) font that can look like their sample. I doubt many want to go out and invest in engraving equipment. That's why I usually take the direction of saying how I could re-create the same look, whether that's how the original was created, or not.