The typecutters and Wood Shop workers at Hamilton Manufacturing were skilled not only at producing wood type, but also at making their own modifications and repairs when necessary. The ingenuity of these workers is visible on many items at the museum including machinery, tools, and patterns for cutting type. 

As often happens, a university professor with a few “mystery” letterpress holdings reached out to Hamilton for assistance in identifying some of these type faces. This inquiry resulted in a deep dive of Hamilton’s typecutting patterns, including a handsome set of 18L Cheltenham Wide Outline patterns. 

We often find hand-marked notes in pencil on the backs or fronts of type patterns in the collection, usually indicating the pattern number within Hamilton’s collection and sometimes others if the patterns originated from an acquired wood type manufacturer. 

The Cheltenham Wide Outline 18L set yielded something different: a delightful discovery of worker ingenuity. Any typecutting patterns with thinner lines are more likely to break over the course of time, whether through use on the pantograph or rough handling during storage. 

Outlined letterforms consist nearly entirely of thinner lines, so it wasn’t unusual to see some letterforms with broken patterns. However, a few of the broken patterns had been repaired by resourceful Wood Shop employees. Using tiny nails in precise alignment, workers restored a curve to the ampersand in the Cheltenham Wide Outline set. 

Also restored by precise application of very small nails was a figure 8, whose interior points had been rounded away through repeated usage. 

These repaired patterns were a lovely find and an intriguing example of skilled problem-solving in the ranks of Hamilton Manufacturing Wood Shop workers of the past.