I think it's New Caslon Black Swash that has been slanted. The font has every letter except the curly initial T in The Mary Tyler Moor Show wording. I found it in the Dover "Swash Letter Alphabets" book by Dan X. Solo

As a matter of fact, I do know. It's an old photo display font called Caslon Black Italic:



I suspect that whoever did it scanned it from an old specimen book and redrew the characters as needed. I doubt very much that it's available as a digital font.

The sample I scanned is from a type specimen book issued by Beissel Inc., a St. Paul, Minnesota typesetting house, probably from the early eighties, but there's no date on it.

Also, no information on the source of the font. The letter in the codes in the upper right refers to the source(s) of the font, but I only know the meaning of a few of them (AI=Alphabet Innovations, TS=TypeSpectra, OR=Visual Graphics Corporation...). No idea what C or R stand for.

By the way, if anyone does know about these codes, I'm trying to track down the meaning of "LI".

It's a beauty, isn't it? One of the nicer examples of this genre I've seen. It's interesting that roman versions of this face are common in old phototype catalogs, but I've only found this one example of the italic.

Jason Walcott needs to get busy and add an italic to his Cabernet, which draws inspiration from the same sources as the font under discussion.

http://www.veer.com/results.asp?Image=JBT0000060

Sorry, I didn't reply to this earlier Yves.

Our server had a bit of a burp last Wednesday evening, causing everything in the product database to temporarily cease to exist.

The server is feeling much better now, thank you very much. As is Cavetto.

House Industries is sitting on the Photolettering goldmine:
see here and here. Guaranteed that Caslon is in the 10 cubic meters of nuggetville.

Randy

That explains it, then: House has done a lot of things for TV Land, judging by the gigantic poster that came in the mail over the weekend.

awesome! thanks to all!!!! especially Mark!

any idea where this example came from? any idea of what book or specimen it is?

Swashadelic! Who's up for digitizing this beauty?

In the same vein: Cavetto

haha! dude you guys ROCK!!!!

I just recently found out about this site... obviously. thanks for all the help. I was trying to find that swash book just now. no bookstores have it at the moment. probably gonna order online.

let me know if anyone does digitize it too...

Grant, do you know why we can't access Cavetto anymore?
"Product number JBT0001000 does not appear to be valid."

> causing everything in the product database to temporarily
cease to exist.

Woah! Sounds like an episode of The Twilight Zone.

It looks like a version of Bodoni Poster Italic with swashes. I'd be surprised if it were custom. Mark will know -- he's the 70s-swash-phenomenon expert 'round these parts.