Antarctic expedition fonts on packing crates left at expedition huts.

Question

I have uploaded three examples of different fonts used during expeditions led by both Scott and Shackleton.

Any help with IDs of any or all of them is much appreciated.

Comments

Answer 1

The middle image appears to be Concave Condensed (1882, MacKellar, Smiths & Jordan). Note that 1910 is something else.

Comments

Thats great kthomps5 - thanks so much.

Do you think it might be better to repost the other two images in separate threads ??

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No need. I was only successful in matching the middle image.

From what I can gather, crate stencils relied on brass templates in the 19th and early 20th century. While some might leverage actual typefaces (as visual templates), I suspect many did not, and were instead freehanded by lettering artists.

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Ahhhhh.
Wow thats really interesting.

Would you have any suggestions for close matches ??
I would have thought that the top crate is a real typeface (rather than a stencil) ??

It looks a little like a form of "Typewriter"

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Agreed, but if the letterforms in photos 1 and 3 were inspired by typefaces used for printing at the time, they didn’t survive into the digital age.

 

So far, not finding anything particularly close for either among digital typefaces.

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As an alternate to Concave Condensed i also found Arched Gothic Condensed

Answer 2

For the first image, some similars:

 

Antenna Serif Extracondensed Light (missing the crossbar on the top of the A), Sanford Region Thin, Rockwell Nova Condensed Light

Answer 3

For the third image, again only finding (vaguely) similar. Almost all lack the flared strokes:

 

The Old Navy Rough, Farming Stencil JNL, Brother Garage Serif Stamp, Halvar Stencil, FTY SKRADJHUWN (not a stencil, but mimics the overall form)