The very word is enough to put a smile on the face of any letterpress printer. Ever since Johann Gutenberg and his associates began hand-casting individual metal letters half a millennium ago, the craft of typefounding has gone hand-in-hand with the Black Art of printing. With letterpress now enjoying an exuberant revival among fine printers, artists, and hobbyists, where can a printer go to get type? Where is the corresponding revival in typecasting? It is here at Skyline Type Foundry, LLC. We know type, we use type, and we love type.
Skyline opened in June, 2004, and is proudly carrying forward the ancient and honorable craft of making metal printing type. We are both proud and humbled to be the de facto successors to multiple type foundries of historic note: included in our matrix library are fonts with the identifying markings of Perfection, Triangle, Neon, Empire, King, Detroit, Barco, Castcraft, Missouri-Central, and Los Angeles Type Foundries. In 2010 we were fortunate enough to acquire the complete matrix collection of the late Charles Broad's famous Typefounders of Phoenix, consisting of over 50 revivals of 19th century type faces.
Skyline now offers for sale many type and border fonts, with new additions each month or so. You will find our type to be reasonably priced, because we want to preserve and promote letterpress printing.
We are fortunate to have brought together nearly 3,000 fonts of matrices from which to cast type, ranging from 6 to 48 point, and matrices for some 2,000 different borders and ornaments. Our holdings include most all well-known faces and a good many antique and uncommon ones.You will find a downloadable inventory of these in The Matrix Vault. Selected fonts and borders will be cast and promoted with specimens on this web site, by internet notices posted to the Letpress Forum, and in the monthly bundle of the Amalgamated Printers Association.
Is it Monotype, or "Real Type"?
This question comes our way regularly from customers. The Monotype Company designed and built its machines (Composition Caster and Sorts Caster) to produce type that was intended to be used once, and then remelted. The Thompson Type Casters in service at Skyline were engineered to produce durable type to be laid in cases and used many times. In his book Practical Typecasting (Oak Knoll, 1993) Theo Rehak states, "There are many who consider the Thompson machine a very close second to the foundry automatics." Mr. Rehak was a casterman at American Type Founders until its end, and subsequently proprietor of The Dale Guild Type Foundry, using former ATF equipment.
Shown above, at LEFT, is a cutaway of a piece of Monotype-cast 24-point type. On the RIGHT is a piece of Thompson-cast type produced here at Skyline. While we hasten to point out that the quality of any casting is determined by many variables—primarily condition of the machine, formula of the metal, and skill and care exercised by the casterman—we have learned the secrets to coaxing the best possible quality from our machines, and proudly put our type up against any Monotype or Thompson-cast type.
Available Type and Custom Castings
Fonts and borders that we have already cast, and are on the shelf for immediate shipping, are shown on the Type & Borders page. New items are steadily added as more castings are done. On-request (commissioned) castings can sometimes be worked into our schedule, depending on several variables and with a certain minimum purchase. E-mail your request and we'll certainly give it serious consideration.
Will Skyline Type work for Hot Foil Stamping? The short answer is, "Yes, but." It is not represented or sold as stamping type. Physically it will work—that is, it will fit and function in your foil stamping machine. However, true foil stamping type is necessarily made of a harder substance (brass or zinc) to resist the heat and pressure inherent in that process. Lead alloy printing type will smash down and deform over time and use. Another possible issue is the "depth of drive", which is the dimension that the face of the type is raised above the body. This dimension is normally larger in stamping type to prevent interfer-ence of the body when stamping soft materials such as leather. All of that said, a regular font of printing type contains many of each character (see the Font Scheme Chart download on the Type & Borders page) and it would certainly be possible to use the type for stamping and replace it with fresh pieces from the font as necessary when they wear out.
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How to Place an Order or Contact Us
There's no highfalutin little cyber shopping cart on this site, you'll have to order the old fashioned way:
1. Click on the Order Form icon below, print off the sheet, and fill in your order.
2. FLAT RATE SHIPPING: STILL ONLY EIGHT DOLLARS ($8.00) ANY ORDER, ANYWHERE IN THE U.S.A.!
3. Include a check for the total, and mail your order to us. Thank You!
4. We ship worldwide. International postage will be billed at actual cost plus insurance, using USPS Flat Rate Boxes. As a convenience to non-USA customers only, we will accept payment by PayPal. (There is a 5% surcharge added to recover the currency conversion fees assessed to us.)
Skyline Type Foundry, LLC PO Box 12816 Prescott AZ 86304 e-mail: sky ------------------------------------ @skylinetype.com
Who's Behind Skyline?
That's me, Schuyler (Sky) Shipley, Chief Engineer. I collect, restore and operate antique presses. I've been involved with type and letterpress printing since 1962, at the age of 8. Skyline Type Foundry LLC was formed in 2004. It is very rewarding to preserve and perpetuate this ancient craft, and to put shiny new type into the hands of letterpress printers worldwide.
MEMBER
American Typecasting Fellowship Amalgamated Printers Association (APA 578) Society of Quasi-United Itinerant Repair and Restoration Engineers for LinecasterS American Amateur Press Association Southwest Letterpress Users Guild St. Louis Letterpress Society
