Keystone Type Foundry

1. Overview

Philadelphia. 1888-1917. Purchased by American Type Founders.

In "Notes from Eastern Cities," an anonymous article in The Inland Printer Vol. 7, No. 6 (September, 1890) pp. 1121-1132 there occurs an note (on p. 1123) which says simply that "The Keystone Type Foundry at 734 Sansom street is run by the Mather Manufacturing Company, and produces many fine faces of type."

The The American Stationer Vol. 25, No. 18 (May 2, 1889) lists in a section of current Trade Marks (p. 983):

No. 16,269. Type, Printers' Rules, Printers' Leads and other Printers' Furniture. - Mather Manufacturing Company, Philadelphia, Pa. Used since June 1, 1888.

"'Keystone,' whether expressed pictorially or in words."

Annenberg has two references to the Mather Manufacturing Company. He lists them on p. as a name of a firm "connected to the trade" which may or may not have been a type foundry. He also notes on p. 168 in his discussion of the American Type Founders that the N. W. Ayer & Co. advertising agency, which became the Keystone Type Foundry in 1888, had in 1884 purchased the Mather Manufacturing Company, a printer's supply house." Annenberg makes no mention of "W. J. McKee" (see above).

The Commercial Directory of the American Republics (Bulletin No. 91 of the Bureau of the American Republics), Volume II (Washington, DC: Bureau of the American Republics, International Union of the American Republics, 1895) [see Google Books] has, on p. 1177, two listings for the Mather Manufacturing Company. The second of these is straightforward: under the heading "Type, Manufacturers of" they list "Mather Manufacturing Co., 734 Sansom street, Philadelphia, Pa." [capitalization as in original]. But the first listing has as its heading "Type Foundry, Keystone" (as if the Keystone Type Foundry were a kind of business rather than a particular business) and lists, as the sole entry in this heading, "Mather Manufacturing Co. (W. J. KcKee), Philadelphia, Pa."

2. Specimen Books

[click image to read at The Internet Archive]

1906. Abridged Specimen Book

Abridged Specimen Book. (Philadelphia: Keystone Type Foundry, 1906)

A digital version of this book, including the original page scans, is available at The Internet Archive; the link at left goes there. Here is a local copy of the PDF version and the (nicer) DjVu version.

Google Books has also digitized this Specimen, although their presentation is at a lower resolution and monochrome. Here's a local copy of it . (Curiously, although this Google Books digitization is of the University of Michigan copy, and although this university is a participant in The Hathi Trust, I cannot (in 2011) find this digitization in The Hathi Trust.)

The Silver Buckle Press at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has digitized this specimen from their collection: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/SilverBuckle.NickelAlloyType

[click image to read]

Accents (1910)

Accents for the Bohemian, Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Swedish and Tagalo Languages . (Philadelphia, PA: Keystone Type Foundry, 1910). This has been digitized by Google Books. The link here is to a local copy of their digitization. As of 2011 this digitization is not available via The Hathi Trust.