We know that Barth Type Casters were sold by the Cincinnati Type Foundry to other type foundries prior to the formation of ATF. But we don't know how many, to which foundries they were sold, and how many were later repurchased by ATF.
At present the only evidence we have concerning sales of Barth type casters by the Cincinnati foundry before the formation of ATF comes from the 1894 ATF Annual Report, filed October 15, 1894 for the fiscal year from Sept. 1, 1893 to Aug. 31, 1894. ( {ATF Report 1894} (Here's a direct link to the reports in the ATF Notebook.) It says that:
"The policy, however, of automatic casting has been consistently pursued whenever possible. Thirteen machines, in addition to those acquired by consolidation, have been since acquired by the company, and thirteen more have been manufactured, making forty-four Barth automatic machines already in the equipment." (p. 5)
Working through the numbers, this means that:
Extrapolating from these numbers requires care. The fact that ATF acquired 18 Barths at its amalgamation does not necessarily mean that these 18 all came from the Cincinnati foundry. It means that they came either from Cincinnati or from other foundries which were later amalgamated into ATF. So all that we can say is: The Cincinnati Type Foundry in February 1892 possessed no more than 18 Barth casters and had sold zero or more Barth casters to foundries which later became a part of ATF.
The 13 casters purchased by ATF by October 1894 are interesting. These must have been sold by the Cincinnati Type Foundry before February 1892 to other type foundries which did not become a part of ATF in the initial 1892 amalgamation. There were at least 13 operating type foundries which did not join ATF in 1892:
While some of these foundries were minor (e.g., John Graham in Chicago), others were of substantial size (Keystone, Bruce, BB&S, etc.)
Also, at least three foundries were active in the 1886-1892 period which terminated operations at or before the formation of ATF.
Any of these might have purchased casters from Cincinnati between 1886 and 1892. On the basis of the 1894 ATF Annual Report, we know that one or more of them did purchase a total of at least 13 Barths.
Finally, the ATF 1894 Annual Report says that 13 machines were purchased. It does not say that all non-ATF Barths were purchased. So all that we can conlude is that between 1886 and February 1892 a minimum of 13 Barth casters were sold to the foundries, listed above, which did not become part of ATF in 1892.
I hesitate to discuss this item, because it is almost certainly a red herring and will probably just further confuse an already obscure subject.
Henry Barth's obituary in The Inland Printer contains the following remark about the Barth Type Caster:
"It ... is the machine in use to-day in a majority of the American typefoundries." ( {IP Obituary 1907}, p. 90.)
This is probably just journalistic exaggeration and Barth mythology. It should probably simply be discarded as a description of the overall US type caster inventory of 1907.
What would it mean, though, if it were true?
The following three type foundries were in operation in 1907, but had been founded after the formation of ATF in 1892. Since ATF never sold Barths domestically, it is unlikely that they were using Barths. (They could have bought Barths from older foundries, but for now I'll ignore that possibility. We know that the Inland, at least, was using automatic casters of its own design.)
The following type foundries (plus ATF) were in operation in 1907 and had been in operation since before the amalgamation of ATF in 1892 (or were direct successors of pre-1892 companies):
Any of these five foundries could have acquired Barths prior to 1892.)
(Aside: I do not know if the foundry of John Graham was still in operation in 1907, and will exclude it from consideration here.)
So in 1907 there were nine type foundries in operation in the US. Three of them almost certainly were not using Barths. One of them (ATF) certainly was. Five of them may or may not have been using Barths.
In order for the statement in Henry Barth's Inland Printer obituary to be literally true, five of the foundries in operation in 1907 would have had to have been using Barth casters. So ATF plus four of the group <Keystone, Farmer, Hansen, BB&S, and Standard> must have been using Barths.
As noted above, I consider this to be very unlikely. Still, the statement in Henry Barth's obituary does suggest that at least some number of foundries other than ATF were using pre-1892 Barth casters in 1907.
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