Vintage cursive upright French script

Question

Hello all,

I’m looking for a typeface that shares the same look and feel of this vintage cursive script. Can someone give a help?

Thanks a lot!!!

Answer 1

This looks like a metal typeface. There were dozens of fonts in this style produced from 1900–1930. Of your digital options, these are probably closest:

Sweet Upright Script

Typo Upright

French Script

Linoscript

Fling

ITC Redonda Fancy

More in this list of upright scripts.

Comments

Thanks once again Stewf!!!

 

Best,

Calabaça

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This style is a French script called Ronde. It was written with a broad nib, reflected by French Script here, as well as a pointed flexible nib, as seen in Fling. Amongst other French scripts, like Bâtarde, Bâtarde Coulée and Caractères Financières, Ronde was used by clerks for administrative purposes until the Anglaise style, typically written with a pointed flexible nib, became popular throughout Europe. In Germany, a slightly reformed Ronde was introduced by Friedrich Soennecken around 1870, who promoted it as Soennecken’s Rundschrift. 

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Thanks for the reminder of the French name, Albert-Jan. I’ll add a couple more fonts that the term jostled from my memory.

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Was this style learned at schools, or you would learn it only as a professional activity like clerks?

Thanks Albert-Jan!

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In Germany, Soenneckens’s Rundschrift was taught at vocational and industrial schools. It was officially used by several Prussian ministries for administrative use and also by the Royal Prussian Railways who also used it on technical drawings. In primary schools, he children were both taught Deutsche Kurrent (German Current) and latin script. For the latin script, the Englische Schreibschrift (Anglaise) was the most popular model. It was written with the then new industrially produced pointed flexible nibs that were made of steel. They lasted longer than the traditional goose quills which were hand-cut and needed to be re-cut regularly. Soennecken suggested that his Rundschrift was easier to write because its letterforms were less complex than the German Current. Also, his Rundschrift was written with the broad nib which was easier to use than the flexible nib. When writing with a broad nib, the main strokes automatically are thick, whereas the pointed flexible nib has to be pressed in order to obtain the desired stroke weight.

I do not know about the situation in France, but it seems logical that the Ronde was taught together with the Bâtarde and the Batarde Coulée in vocational schools (if there were any at that time) and the so-called latin schools (higher education between primary schools and university) during the 18th century.

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Thanks a lot for the reply!!! Very interesting stuff...