Here is all the type from the poster.

Gotham & Condensed is nice too

http://www.typography.com/catalog/gothamcondensed/index.html

Your suggestions lead me to Interstate as well. Not exact – especially not the M – but the overall feel is similiar.

Let me know if you find anything closer.

Thank you!

Getting consistent lettershapes when doing lithographic artwork was fairly easy — the artist would use a type of transfer (meaning he or she would draw a letter and using appropriate paper to transfer to and reapply on the stone or zinc plate). So: handlettered & clean!

Okay, I looked at it again and I'm waffling--it's impossible on a computer screen. If it is hand done, it is very good.

That was a time of crafts-people, not to say we aren't, that could wield a mean paint brush. Some of the work that Dwiggins did, for example, is quite astonishing.

In the old days, when they did lithographed posters like this, they did not use type at all. Everything--even small print--was done by hand. It was not like it is now when practically anything that looks like type almost always is. There were, in fact, practical reasons why they did not use type.

First, type was available only in specific sizes, up to about an inch tall for metal, larger for wood. Even so, if the type was a little too big or too small, tough luck. Theoretically, you could photograph the type and enlarge or reduce it, but that was too complicated and expensive at the time. Instead, there was a whole army of lettering artists ready to step in whenever you wanted greater control over how your letters looked, including the simple (to us) case of making them fit nicely into a layout. These people became all but obsolete when phototype, stat cameras, and offset printing became the norm.

Second (and more important), posters like this were made by drawing or painting the art actual size onto lithographic stone. (Hint: lith = stone, graph = draw). You couldn't use metal or wood type to put letters on a lithographic stone because the surface is hard and smooth. Type was designed to work with the soft, absorbent surface of paper. Even if you could have used type, the image would be backwards from what you need. The art on lithographic stones had to be wrong-reading so that when it was transfered to paper it would be right-reading. Type printed onto stone would thus be backwards from what was needed.

Sorry for the lecture, but I sense that there seems to be somewhat of a lack of knowledge concerning graphic arts history here.

Short answer: Most letters on posters made before the 1950s were done by hand, even when it looks an awful lot like type.