Does anyone know the reason when / why type high became .918 inches?
I’ve heard explanations that range from it being a totally arbitrary number (which I find hard to believe) to having it correspond to the length of someone’s thumb.
Is there a definitive answer to this that anyone knows of?
The exact measurement was a metrical one, i.e. based on the meter, namely one fifteenth (i.e. 1/15) of 35 centimeters, so that the height of paper or height to paper or type height was exactly .9186 inches (instead of .918 inches). For details see Victor Strauss, The Printing Industry, Bowker 1967, page 60 and page 753.
(The US typographical point size measurement was also a metrical one, namely eighty-three picas were set as equal to 35 centimeters, i.e. 83 x 12 = 996 points.)
I thought Type High was the buzz one gets from playing with lead type and mineral spirits.
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