Luckombe Upper Case

  A    B    C    D    E    F    G   ABCDEFG
HIKLMNO HIKLMNO
PQRSTVW PQRSTVW
XYZAEOEUJ XYZAEOEUJ
1234567 âêîôû§¦¦
890çhair|b|k áéíóú||¦
äëïöü|tk    à     è     ì     ò     ù    ¶     *  

This English layout is that shown by Luckombe: The History and Art of Printing (1771), reprinted Gregg 1965. It is the same as shown (as being on the old plan) by Johnson: Typographia (1824), and Savage: Art of Printing (1841). It is almost the same as Smith's No.2 Upper of 1755, and the identical Stower's Upper No.1 (Printer's Grammar 1808), except that they reverse § and ¶, and the Old Upper of Hansard: Typographia (1825), except that he also moves ||. Oxford Univerity Press's OUP lay still maintains Luckombe's arrangement of capitals, small caps, k, and numerals (apart from swapping J and AE), but not the accents, j, superiors, etc. The earlier Upper No.1 case of Smith (1755) is very similar, except for the reference signs in a different order, J and OE swap positions, as do a row of accents, and hairs and ç are in the Lower case, being replaced in the Upper by ||i and ffi.

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. The companion Lower is the Luckombe case.

The empty case configuration is that of Moxon, and Smith (1755), Stower (1808), Johnson (1824), Savage (1841), Tomlinson (1853), Mackellar (1870), Miller & Richard (1873), Southward (1882), 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
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This page was written in 1997 by David Bolton and last updated 26 February 02.