Where did the sample originate from? Any additional insight appreciated.

Just an OLD sign....(no clues more than that)
thanx!

Is this an image you took or found on the internet?

Based on the image and it being an old sign I’d be willing to bet it’s hand painted.

no, its def. raised cast iron...

This looks like one of the standard house numbering letters cast from either brass or pot metal that used to be available in hardware shops in the 1950s. People would just walk into a shop and pick out numbers from a bin.

ChrisL

yeah...exactly...

I’m redoing the sign and am stuck with this font...
I’m leaning in to GOUDY derived fonts...but can’t nail it yet!
ugh!

Yeah, the 7 in Goudy Forum is similar, but not the 5. In fact, matching the 7 is not the hardest part. (Worcester, Serlio, Poor Richard, University Roman, to name a few, have a similar 7). Finding a 5 to go with the 7 seems to be the challenge.

- Mike Yanega

thanks Mike...i think you’re right...it doesn’t seem like they are of the same font origin....
hmm....

the 5 is more of a Garamond Simoncini...origin it seems?

the 5 is more of a Garamond Simoncini...origin it seems?

the riddle still hasn’t quite been solved...
this should be in the bag...by now...

:(

It is highly likely that they are mixed sorts, given that it was likely a handyman or homeowner who purchased the original figures.

ChrisL

chris what’s you take on the 5?
(actually also the seven)...

this is TOUGH!!!
i’m dying here...and the seven really is tougher because of that lower serif...

My take is that those are allowances for casting but to a larger extent, a place to put the nail behind it. If you think of the crudeness of the technology, you realize that this was not about matching the purity of a typeface but making a cheap and fast product that would survive the production process with few “throw aways” and function as something that could be nailed on a door—like a tapered horseshoe nail.

ChrisL

I don’t see why there’s any reason to assume there was ever a font behind this.

Craig, only in the old school sense of someone free-handing the look of one. We are so spoiled today with a pop-up menu containing 1000 fonts that we forget what the world was like in the 19th century when the technology used to make the above door signs came about. Everything was done by hand and reproduced with crude molds.

ChrisL