Assuming this was standardized you could count them... http://www.p22.com/rtf/sternmerch.html

I don’t think that there was standard for this, it’s one of those things that was determined by manufacturers and would vary dramatically around the world based on the local language. Metal type was also sold by weight, and in the 1912 ATF catalog the scheme is broken down by the weight in pounds and ounces of each letter included in a 100 lb. font—which suggest that the number of each sort would vary based on individual sort weights.

There were / are several standard schemes for assembling fonts at foundries or Monotype houses. Unfortunately, I don't have any info on fonting schemes here at my office, so I'm no help.

You might check with some current Monotype shops that still sell fonts. M&H Type in San Francisco or Quaker City Type Foundry in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania. Or Sterling Type in Indiana. Or Bell Type & Rule in Los Angeles. Or Hill & Dale Foundry in West Virginia.

Some Monotype houses would also make custom fonting schemes. Or sell 6-inch lines of individual sorts. Depending on what a printer needed.

Foundries and Monotype houses also sold "weight fonts," extensions of the standard fonting schemes in larger quantities.

Let us know what you find out.

powers

In his translation of Fournier's Manuel Typographique, Harry Carter gives a scheme for English for 500 lbs. Roman (12-pt. Old Style). I'm not inclined to try to transcribe it here. But maybe later I can scan the charts and post.

-- Kent.

A half-strength Jobbing font for typesetting in English goes like this:

Pre-revolutionary Russian:

Here is Harry Carter's scheme from Fournier on Typefounding, his translation of Fournier's Manuel Typographique, Volume 3, pp. 236–37 (originally published in 1930; my source is the 1995 Darmstadt facsimile).

 
Note that this has no real correspondence to Fournier's scheme, which was for French and for 100,000 letters ["Police de cents milliers de lettres"], and not by weight as was the later practice. I assume Carter's scheme is based on some 1930s standard.

James Mosley wrote the introduction and notes for my edition. Perhaps he will wander by here and offer some additional insight on traditional font schemes.

Not sure about typesetting, but for the sake of completeness: