Empty Improved Double Case

                                                       
                   
            
             
       
 
       
           
       
    

This English typecase configuration matches the Improved Double Case of Miller & Richard: Specimens of Book Newspaper Jobbing and Ornamental Types (1894) and still in Printing Type Specimens (1927), and available in both English and Scotch sizes. It is shown by Caslon: Specimen of Printing Types (1897), and also Southward: Modern Printing (2nd ed 1904 and still in 8th ed 1954), Stephenson, Blake & Co: Printing Material & Machinery (1922), Caslon: Printing Types and Materials (1925), Cefmor: Printers Equipment & Sundries (1955), Cefmor-Brehmer: Catalogue (1963), Harrild: Catalogue (1970), Horsfall: Startype (1978), and Stephenson Blake: Price List (1989). It was still in use by Heffer (1970), Jarrold Printing Museum (2001), Old Clewer Steam Press (2001), University of Reading (2002), Incline Press (2009), and the Alembic Press (2009). Suitable lays are Aspinall of 1936, Sheffield of 1963, Curwen of 1968, B.P.S. of 1983, Dramrite of 1990, etc.

The case has 53 boxes in the lower case section and 42 boxes in the upper case (right hand) section. The improvement is in the reduction of upper case rows, to allow more room for capitals. Thus the upper case bay has 2 short and 4 tall rows of boxes, whereas the Ordinary Double has 7 rows of same sized boxes. Whetton, the editor of Southward in 1933, commented that there was the ordinary 7 row arrangment, and also a new 5 row version, but there are at least two versions of this, one shown, for example, by Whetton: Practical Printing & Binding 1946, and another, much earlier, shown by Southward in Printers Register 1875, and still being shown in the 1910s Miller & Richard catalogue.

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ie with the boxes left blank
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ie with characters assigned to boxes
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This page was written in 1997 by David Bolton and last updated 26 April 2015.