Interesting article, but why do you belief Fleischman has done every cut by his own? :-) Mostly 2 or 3 masters for different sizes were produced. From these the other sizes would be derived in a special machine - the Pantograph.

Before this time, every broken ...(I don`t know the english word - in german its called "Stahlstempel") to build the "forms" for the lead types have to be reproduced. - This means, the master design has to be rewritten! This happens a lot and so the font face changed or shifted over the years. Maybe to avoid to much such broken "Stahlstempels", the old faces were cut with less detail or even other details.- I mean, it is possible that such differences came form a different type production and reproduction technology, and / or form a shifting in the cuts. Perhaps someone knows when this pantograph technology was introduced by the foundry of Enschede.

The pantograph matrix engraving machine is a late ninetheenth-century development and was not used extensively in foundries until the early part of the twentieth. ATF, for instance, began using it in only at the tail end of the first decade, if then.

I've been reading _Typefoundries in the Netherlands From the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century_ by Charles Enschede (trans by Harry Carter and based on the 1893 edition). There is some discussion of Fleischman and the work. I doubt that there would have been two or three master designs, or, for that matter, any definitive master (other than ongoing carbon proofs). The size optimization was normally the result of the hand and eye correction during the process of cutting the punch. More of an intuitive organic process.

Hrant

I have read your piece several times now and I still don't quite understand what it is supposed to convey. There are so many variables in letterpress printing that given any five examples, you will end up with five different renderings. Ink coverage and ink accumulation, pressure and movement of the ink rollers, impression and makeready, previous wear on type, substrate variables (surface and thickness - and, in handmades, variation within the sheet itself!), dampness of paper, weather conditions, etc, all contribute to variation, even within an edition run. Add to this the kind of press, the particular operational variables of the press, and the rational of the work (fine press, commercial, get-it-out-this-afternoon, etc). And this is all yet ignoring the experience, approach, and attitude of the pressman.

I don't see how this can convey useful information on type design. Certainly some historical printers may have been concerned with rendering the type design exactingly, but rarely in the commercial sphere.

Fournier's famous remark, "it is not right to blame the letter for the fault of the ink," is probably indicative. Once the type was cast and ink applied, it's completely out of the punchcutter's hands.

Fleischman was way before the pantograph - as far as I know all those fonts are one font: from the same matrices. Also, I think in each case wear would be nil or minimal.

> so many variables

Yes, but it's still possible to ask some smart questions - because those samples were very type-conscious, and things like paper were chosen very carefully. Considering that in each case the printer was certainly very concerned about exactly how the type came out, I could validly ask for example: why is the 1908 the only one to preseve the true letter shapes?

hhp

Hrant

Wear is never nil or minimal. It really doesn't take much to throw off the true letter shape, actually the exact opposite is closer. It takes a great deal of effort to preserve the true letter shape.

Except when the type is freshly cast (and using a quality alloy) from the matrices especially for the printing, no? And that in fact was the case for 3 or 4 of those 5 samples, I'm pretty sure. And note that -in the case of the specimens- the samples are limited: the stuff isn't used for pages and pages of setting.

hhp

Hrant

What are the various dates of these samples?

You say one was printed in 1908. Were all the others printed before 1814?

Gerald

What happened in 1814?

----

In the one with 5 settings, they're from:
1) The 1978 large-format Enschede specimen.
2) A 1953 Enschede book that's part specimen and part historical fluffing up.
3) "Fleischman on Punchcutting" printed by Bram de Does. A trophy book.
4) The 1908 large-format Enschede specimen.
5) A reproduction of the 1768 Enschede specimen.

In the one with 3, they are:
1) de Does
2) 1953
3) 1908
These are the ones I scanned myself - the other two were scanned by a friend - I never bothered to ask for "raw" scans of those.

IIRC, in all of them (except maybe the 1953) the type was freshly cast from the original matrices. But the repro of the 1768 does seem unreliably lousy.

--

Only in the 1908 did the printer fully respect Fleischman's intent. I can say this because his head serifs are clearly structurally different than his foot serifs, and not even a dunce would do that unintentionally (and Fleischman was a genius), but this difference is lost in all but the 1908.

hhp

"What happened in 1814?"

First use of printing rollers.

Before that they used ink balls. Completely different way of applying the ink.

Hrant

I have some leather "ink balls" I will bring in. AKA, commonly "printers' balls."

Kind of cool actually. These were cured with "chamber lye." Can you imagine what that was? Think: before indoor plumbing.

A controversial issue in its time and for almost a century: traditional pressmen worried about the lost of the "feel of the type" with rollers. Can you imagine? the feel of the type?

> Before [1814] they used ink balls.

Very interesting.
I guess the balls would put more ink on the shoulders than the rollers?
So does pre-roller printing necessarily have more gain?

> the feel of the type?

It's interesting -and really fundamental- to consider things like this. Some people would deny that we can feel such things at all, while others put too much weight behind it. It's hard to remain non-metaphysical about the "dark half" of human nature - but you can't make soup with metaphysics.

Funny idea: what about inking photopolymer with balls?

hhp

Hrant, I just picked up on your question: "So why
would Fleischman cut his head serifs like Jannon but his
foot serifs like Fournier?"

You may not have been speaking literally, but I thought
I'd point out that Fleischman probably wasn't cutting
his serifs "like Fournier." Fleischman was a little bit
older than Fournier and the #65 was probably cut
about four years before Fournier published his first
specimen. Somehow I don't think that Fleischman was
actually modeling his foot serifs after Fournier's work.

But as I said, you may have been speaking only
figuratively, "Why did Fleischmann cut his foot serifs in
the same manner as we associate with Fournier?"

I don't have an answer to the question itself.

-- K.

Yes, it was figurative. I wasn't even aware of the exact chronology - thanks for pointing it out.

In fact it's possible that he didn't even know about Jannon's [much earlier] work.
The internet wasn't as ubiquitous then.

> I don't have an answer to the question itself.

Answers are boring - let's hear your guess! :-)

hhp

"I guess the balls would put more ink on the shoulders than the rollers?
So does pre-roller printing necessarily have more gain?"

Not necessarily, but the effect is more in the press operator's control, for better or worse. I would say, from printed specimens, that the roller provided a more uniform means of ink transfer and quickly caught on.

> the feel of the type?

"It's interesting -and really fundamental- to consider things like this. Some people would deny that we can feel such things at all, while others put too much weight behind it."

An early twentieth century complain that I read suggested that the pressman could feel (the pressure on) the type up into his forearms, which provided a more intuitive approach to the inking. Something that was lost in the more generally effective roller technique.

"Funny idea: what about inking photopolymer with balls?"

Far beyond my skill level.