Smith Upper Case No.1

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This English layout is the No.1 lay shown by Smith, The Printer's Grammar (1755), reprinted Gregg (1965) in their series of English Bibliographical Sources. The companion lower is Smith No.1. Smith also shows a Upper No.2 and Upper No.3 lay, which differ in the arrangement of accents, reference signs, J and U, hair spaces and ligatures. Luckombe in 1771 (and then Johnson in 1824) show a lay very similar to the Smith No.2. Smith remarks on the advantages to be gained if everyone followed the same lay, and comments (in 1755) that type bought by the case at auction often had to be redistributed into a different lay, if it was to be usable. (This comment is still valid today!).

Note that the boxes with A,B, etc are small caps. The ¦ box represents a single dagger, and ¦¦ a double dagger. The |b box represents the long s with b ligature, etc. Note that the capitals are still in the top rows, like Moxon, but the numerals have moved up a row. Small capitals have replaced the accents in the top right rows, and the accents have moved to the bottom rows. The astronomical etc signs are omitted. The |t and k are still where Moxon had them. OE is now in the lay.

The empty case configuration is that of Moxon, and Luckombe (1771), Stower (1808), Johnson (1824), Miller & Richard (1873), Southward (1882), Mackellar (1885), Barnhart Bros & Spindler's News (1890s), Stephenson Blake & Co (1922), Caslon (1925) etc.

Other empty cases ie with the boxes left blank		Other type layouts ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layouts	Glossary of terms used	Sources of the layouts	Introduction
Quantities in a fount of type		Quantities in a case of type
Notes about Job and Double Cases	Notes about Upper cases	Notes about Lower cases	Alembic home page

This page was written in 1998 by David Bolton and last updated 26 February 02.