Looking back an a 1985 film type catalog, this looks to me like Helvetica Bold. I admit others eyes are sharper for fine details, but I couldn’t tell the difference between their logo lettering and that typeface.

- Mike Yanega

On a letter ’e’ in Helvetica the terminals are flat, on the Letraset ’e’ they’re at a slight angle, the same with the terminala on the letter ’a’ and ’s’.

It’s the same kind of small difference you see between some letters in Arial v Helvetica, but the logo isn’t Arial (that has a far different letter ’t’)

Arial wasn’t even born when this logo was made.

That’s also another reason I ruled Arial out. I hate Arial

That’s also another reason I ruled Arial out. I hate Arial

Oops excuse double post

This is the old display version of Helvetica, derived from the larger sizes of the original metal foundry type. Most digital Helveticas are descended from Linotype’s version, which was designed for 18-point and smaller (machine setting). URW’s Nimbus Sans Bold D (D=display) is about as close as you can get in a digital font.

http://www.urw.de/cgi-bin1/dalcgi/source/schnellsuche.htd?searchchar=nim...

Thanks Mark

Mark, I had a good look at Nimbus and can’t see a case where the terminals of the ’s’, ’a’ and ’e’ match the Letraset logo. Earlier I asked over at WTF and was referred back to your answer. What I don’t want to do is make a big deal of this, because it isn’t. I just want to sate my curiosity

I did say, “close as you can get in a digital font”. It’s quite possible that Letraset altered it somewhat when they did their “cut” of Helvetica for transfer lettering. However, they credit the source as Haas. Looking at an old Letraset catalog, the “e” in their Helvetica does have that slight tilt, whereas the “e” in the Helvetica shown in a metal foundry type catalog has it perfectly horizontal, or nearly so. While Nimbus Sans Bold D is an accurate digital version of the original Haas foundry cut, it looks like the Letraset “cut” of Helvetica may be a lost typeface.

Looks that way, thanks Mark.