That does look familiar to me, and I spent a little while studying Ihlenburg's body of work, so I am suspecting it is indeed his.

There is a collection of Ihlenburg stuff at the Cary Library (at RIT in Rochester, New York). At the time it was acquired, David Pankow wrote an article about Ihlenburg's work. I think I have a copy of this, but it is not accessible right now, as we are preparing to move.

Cheers,

T

This is in fact exactly the sort of thing ATF produced a lot of around the turn of the century.

Your best bet is a book called "Specimens of type, brass rules and dashes, ornaments and borders, society emblems, check lines, cuts, initials and other productions of the American Type Founders Co.", edited by A Lawson and J Bidwell (New York, Garland, 1981). But that's also a facsimile, so it won't be the best quality.

Another way would be to track down an actual ATF specimen book, but an early one: I suspect the famous 1923 edition doesn't have this font. FYI, the Lawson book is based [mostly] on the specimen of 1896.

A third approach is to see if this was ever made available as a phototype face (shudder), although procuring specimens of such would probably cost you something.

hhp

>> Another way would be to track down an actual ATF specimen book.

I'd really like to find a specimen book, but i don't know where to begin to look for one. Also, do you have any idea what purchasing such a specimen book would cost? Basically I'm looking for whatever I can find to help me finish up this project.

Keep posting! I'm getting some good information here! thanks for all your help thus far...

Okay i have more questions... so how do i find more information about american type founders?

>>A third approach is to see if this was ever made available as a phototype face
I believe that's what Solotype specialized in and this face is part of their catalog, but I don't know of any way to contact Dan Solo these days.

Paul, I just looked through the 1923 ATF Specimen, and didn't see this in there. So, like Hrant says, you might look for an earlier one.

>such a specimen book would cost?

I got mine off eBay - it's got a torn spine and two or three torn pages, and I believe I paid only $40. But I don't know if that's a fair average.

> i don't know where to begin to look for one.

Are you in college? I get my stuff mostly from UCLA (used to work there), which has a great typography collection. I don't know the situation in Phoenix (I guess your closest "college town", unless Flagstaff has something), but if you can tap the help of a college friend he can do what's called an "inter-library loan" for you on virtually anything. Purchasing: if you get lucky like Nathan, great - keep your eyes open, but don't expect something to just fall in your lap.

Contacting Dan Solo: it shouldn't be too hard to track him down. But I have a feeling he won't be much help sans cash. BTW, how lousy is the repro in the solo book? Do you have a hi-res scan handy? Just a few glyphs will be enough to tell. And one other thing: the sample would have to be extremely high quality for you to avoid "spending a lot of time on each letter". And the fact that this was a metal face means that no sample is going to be extremely good anyway... One thing you could do though is go for the "rough look".

Info about ATF: You might start by reading the restrospective in issue 43/44 of the American Printing History Association journal: