Wireless Set No. 52 Canadian - Project

[David Dunlop]

I asked for some detail photos from my friend, Reg, of his Case, Spares Contents List label to see if they would help in identifying the font Canadian Marconi Company used in printing these labels, They were a big help!

First, one photo was of the CMC Part Number for this list which turned out to be sequentially right behind the Contents List label for the Remote Operating Case: 114-554 versus 114-553.

After a close look at groups of identical characters in these three photos, the realization also dawned on me I was not looking a traditional, typeset printed characters at all. these labels were actually hand drawn by professional Artist/Illustrators. Probably the same team of workers responsible for the amazing detail in the illustrations in the Master Parts Lists for the 52-Set.

For any given character, there are no identical duplicates. when one looks carefully enough, you start to actually see the subtle variations in line thicknesses, heights, widths, curves and end points of each character. Their work 80 years ago is truly unique and amazing.


David

[Chris Suslowicz]

Draughtsman with technical pens and lettering guides. Still an extremely skilled job, now almost completely replaced by computers. I remember drawing boards.

If you can find the matching lettering guides and/or enough text samples it might be possible to re-create it as a font for modern DTP software.

(That is also a skilled job for an expert, unfortunately.)

Best regards,
Chris.

[Chris Suslowicz]

You may be in luck, the font looks like Copperplate Gothic.

May need to search for a version that has oval zeroes, the one on this Mac has them nearly circular.

Chris.