And so with this new year, we mark one-fourth of the way through century 21. Yes, time does accelerate! A quick retrospective of 2024 at Skyline: 14 new Fonts, 5 new Borders, 2 new Initial sets, 1 new Collection, and 1 new size of Quads & Spacing. Plus numerous restock castings, for a total production of 8,060 pounds.
To start off this next trip around the sun, we bring you one more antique face, Latin Condensed in 18pt. It dates back almost 150 years and is quite familiar to readers of the New York Times (All the News That’s Fit to Print) which has used it extensively as a headline face.
The New Old Stock ATF type project is completed, all of it has been evaluated and inventoried. The last to be added was a substantial quantity of Helvetica, Melior and Optima—cast not by ATF, but Germany’s Stempel foundry. Total weight of all the type on this list is 13,116 lbs. The list and ordering instructions can be found on the Skyline web site Products menu. Future revisions will be made only to cull out what is sold.
In the months since we undertook the monster job of hauling in and prepping for sale that 8-ton stash of NOS, our used type sales have been rather neglected. Time and attention have now been freed up to resume that aspect of the business, and 18 new items were posted for sale in The Junk Bin this week.
The events of the past year are enough to cause one to take a step back, a deep breath, and seriously wonder what the future holds. In typefounding specifically, almost all the few remaining private typecasters are well into the far end of the retirement age bracket. Of the only two new rising stars, Val Lucas (as protégé to Jim Walczak) is shining with promise, but Larry Johnson’s Pelican Type Foundry seems to have fallen off the radar, despite a celebrated debut a couple of years ago. Among the dwindling commercial operators we saw the loss of Michael Bixler, throwing the fate of the Bixler type foundry into limbo. Arion Press and its M&H Type subsidiary in San Francisco, heir to the historic MacKenzie & Harris foundry, lost their lease at The Presidio (federal government property) and moved to what is reportedly a more favorable location and situation. It was rumored, though, that a large quantity of the old shelf stock was to be salvaged out in the move. Our customers report that M&H is not presently taking orders. In any case, our friends there sure do keep a low profile. As to Arizona’s Premier Type Foundry: Your proprietor is now 70 years old, and while still in robust health, he ponders the future of Skyline and whether ultimately it will be able to outlast him. Are the right person or persons to carry it forward even out there?