There are a lot of irregularities in the letter construction and proportions. I think it's likely this was from a hand-painted sign or something similar.

I had to copy the image and shrink it to about 10% to see what you meant, but I agree that it seems hand-drawn. The N's are different widths and the R's have different tails. Except for the A, which looks like some Caslon's, I would say the lettering seems based on a heavy weight of Century.

Hey Mark, did you decide to scour the old threads for ones that were never solved? I see a flock of posts like this.

- Mike Yanega

Jared posted a list of "cold cases" recently and I tried to crack a few this morning:

http://typophile.com/node/65359