A Question About Type. Copied from Quora

[Subdeacon Joe]

When people bought printing presses, how many of each letter were they typically given? Or were letters sold separately?

Letterpress printing type was sold by the ‘font’ which consists of a package of upper case or lower case letters, or figures (numerals and punctuation marks), and looks like these:

As hard as it may be for someone in 2021 to understand, each pack of type consisted of one subset of one typeface in one size and one style and one weight. Each foundry had a standard distribution of characters (because, for example, “x” was used much less frequently than “e”). Since each package of type was more or less the same size, the number of actual pieces of type in a package would vary with the point size of the type. Thus each package would have stamped on it the number of “A” (or “a”) characters it contained…allowing the purchaser to extrapolate the other character counts using a standard table (the most common being that of American Typefounders):

Because typesetting anything serious would require more characters than came in a single package, customers would order multiples of packages, which would then be combined and carefully placed into a typecase:

…which would in turn be stored in a type cabinet:

To put this in stark perspective, for a typesetter to have the flexibility to use the same assortment of faces, weights and styles as are visible in this MS Word dialog box…

…would require about 14,000 pounds of metal type!

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

19 minutes ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

When people bought printing presses, how many of each letter were they typically given? Or were letters sold separately?

Letterpress printing type was sold by the ‘font’ which consists of a package of upper case or lower case letters, or figures (numerals and punctuation marks), and looks like these:

As hard as it may be for someone in 2021 to understand, each pack of type consisted of one subset of one typeface in one size and one style and one weight. Each foundry had a standard distribution of characters (because, for example, “x” was used much less frequently than “e”). Since each package of type was more or less the same size, the number of actual pieces of type in a package would vary with the point size of the type. Thus each package would have stamped on it the number of “A” (or “a”) characters it contained…allowing the purchaser to extrapolate the other character counts using a standard table (the most common being that of American Typefounders):

Because typesetting anything serious would require more characters than came in a single package, customers would order multiples of packages, which would then be combined and carefully placed into a typecase:

…which would in turn be stored in a type cabinet:

To put this in stark perspective, for a typesetter to have the flexibility to use the same assortment of faces, weights and styles as are visible in this MS Word dialog box…

…would require about 14,000 pounds of metal type!

 

When our local paper got rid of their "lead" (alloy) type I was given 400  pounds of it for casting bullets.  They had tons  of scrap typr  in a large building behind the plant that had been dumped back there and never hauled away for reuse somewhere else.  I didn't cast my own for modern guns and it was  too hard for muzzle loaders.

 

A swapped the last of it out about 6 or 7 years later.  It wouldn't have lasted that long, but they gave away tons more to other people in the valley, too.

 

It  just dawned on me that it was about 1960, 65  years ago or maybe a year or so either way.

 

Also all that lead and I ain't died nor even been sick from exposure.

 

Another "just dawned on me": just a few years later I was traveling all over Vietnam with Agent Orange all over the place and have no negative effects from that either.

 

Makes me wonder what God is saving me for.  I  hope it's a good reason and not some horrible example for other folks.

 

I remember some using it for "base" by melting it down adding more lead or other metals to get exactly what they wanted.

Edited March 7 by Forty Rod SASS 3935

[Subdeacon Joe]

To answer Alpo's question 

 

In letterpress printing, an "f combination" refers to a ligature, which is a single, custom-cast piece of metal type that combines the letter "f" with an adjacent letter. 

Graphic Design Stack Exchange

Key Aspects of "f" Combinations (Ligatures):

• Purpose: The primary purpose is to prevent the "hood" (top curve) of the lowercase 'f' from colliding with the tittle (dot) of an 'i', 'j', or the stem of letters like 'l', 'b', or 'h' when they are placed next to each other.
• Common Examples:
  • fi (f + i)
  • fl (f + l)
  • ffi (f + f + i)
  • ffl (f + f + l)
  • ff (f + f)
• Usage: These are used to ensure smooth, professional typography, particularly in well-set book work or high-quality stationary, preventing the damaged or crowded look that results from trying to kern individual letters.