Los Angeles. Origins to the 1930s and Walt Gebhard. (Bell Type's article puts the founding date at 1937). Closed 1990s. Named "Los Angeles Type Founders" from late 1940s. Acquired by Barco.
Close informal ties to Bell Type and Rule. Acquired Typefounders, Inc. [of Phoenix].
Here is a view of the casting department of LATF, scanned by me from their Type Specimens and Price List, No. 16: December, 1959. The casting machines shown in the left and the foreground are Thompson Type-Casters.
If you click on the image above, it will go to a perfectly usable 2048 pixel wide greyscale version. Since actual photographs of working typefoundries are rare, however, here is a full-resolution (1200dpi RGB) version of the scan (75 Megabytes): latf-specimen-no-17-1959-1200rgb-002-casting-department-photo-rot90ccw-crop-9168x4512.png
Antique Types
This illustrates the types cast from matrices acquired by LATF from Typefounders, Inc. (of Phoenix). These were in turn in part the work of Weidemann and of Carroll / Replica Type Foundry. The matrices for these types (along with the rest of LATF) were (was) acquired by Barco. These matrices in particular were acquired in November 2010 by Skyline Type Foundry.
Thanks are due to Sky Shipley of Skyline Type Foundry for making this specimen available.
Los Angeles Type [specimen, early 1970s]
Type specimen, undated but before 1978 based on internal evidence and material acquired together with this specimen.
Los Angeles Type [specimen, pre-1991]
[NOT DONE] Type specimen, undated but probably 1970s or 1980s. (It is very similar to the pre-1978 specimen above. It was printed with a (213) area code, amended by the previous owner to (310), which dates it to before the introduction of area code 310 in 1991.) Grey cover.
Price List, 1992-08-01
This price list notes that all orders are FOB Los Angeles or Chicago, and gives as its address Barco Type in Bensenville (a Chicago suburb). This is in copyright, and so is not reprinted here.
Price List, 1994-04-01
This price list notes that all orders are FOB Los Angeles or Chicago, and gives as its address Barco Type in Bensenville (a Chicago suburb). This is in copyright, and so is not reprinted here.
Special Cuts [redirection]
A small printed card entitled "Special Cuts," which announced that LATF would no longer provide such cuts and redirected the customer to several engraving services. This was found slipped in with a 1992-08-01 price list, but may or may not have been sent with that price list originally.
[Not yet reprinted because copyright status unclear.]
Bell Type and Rule maintains a page about LA Type Founders at http://www.belltype.com/LAType.html
Robert Trogman, who apprenticed at LA Type, wrote a short article on his experiences with them, "L. A. Type - Winning the War" in Galley Gab, No. 8 (August, 2007): 13. Note that the website mentioned in Galley Gab, www.galleygab.net, is no longer in operation. All twelve issues are available for download at http://www.metaltype.co.uk/galleygab.shtml.
The type specimens, price lists, and other items reprinted here were published in the US without copyright notice at a time when such notice was required to secure copyright. They therefore passed into the public domain upon initial publication. The reprints of them here remain in the public domain.
All portions of this document not noted otherwise are Copyright © 2011 by David M. MacMillan and Rollande Krandall.
Circuitous Root is a Registered Trademark of David M. MacMillan and Rollande Krandall.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons "Attribution - ShareAlike" license. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ for its terms.
Presented originally by Circuitous Root®
Select Resolution: 0 [other resolutions temporarily disabled due to lack of disk space]
