At a used bookstore just outside Philly, called Walk A Crooked Mile Books, I found some typophilic books that my be of interest to some of you.

1. This Fortunate Man: Edward DeWitt Taylor
It's a 1948 AIGA "keepsake", 1200 printed. It's a small, 32pg book, letterpress printed (I presume) by Stanford Univ. Press in Linotype Caslon Old Face and English Caslon (for the titling). It's only $10 and is in very good condition. Something for the AIGA completist.

2. American Typestting Corporation Specimen Book
It's a tall, narrow book. Bound with a plastic comb binding, the cover's a bit worn, but the interior is in good condition. It has sections titled: Linotype, Monotype, Ludlow, Foundry, Copy Casting, along with an index. It's about 130 pgs, with 2 brochures from Bertsch + Cooper inside.

Those 2 are interesting finds, but not anything amazing. The next book is very impressive.

3. Specimen Book of Type Styles: Mergenthaler Linotype Company
This is massive tome, around a foot wide and about 8 inches tall, was published in 1915. It has 1,078 pages of what appears to be every bit of type Linotype had to offer. It's got a stamp in the front matter designating it 'Copy No. 138'. It's got a great hard cover that's well worn, but the interior is in very good condition. This is clearly a luxurious resource, because it features multi-color printing at various points, to showcase the multitude of layouts and design possibilities that the Linotype library can make possible. It also includes a comprehesive 'foreign types' section with Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Russian, 'German' (meaning blackletter) types, and others. The price on the interior cover is $200. I couldn't find an example of this publication on Linotype.org, so I don't have any info on it. I didn't have my digital camera with me, but I can go back and snap some shots if anyone would like. If I had the $$, I'd buy it for myself. It's pretty astounding.

Here's the info for the seller:
Walk a Crooked Mile Books
Devon at Gowen Street
Philadelphia, PA 19119
215-242-0854

(By the way, I'm not a representative of the store, I'm just posting this for the benefit of Typophile readers.)