Here’s the fifth and last variant in the commission for Stymie that we have been producing. In each of these we cast ten fonts over and above the order. Interest has been surprisingly good in this common utility face, and that may be because we have included some accents and rarely-seen alternate characters. This is a no-nonsense type face with the attitude, I mean what I say, and if you don’t like that, you can go pound salt! Stymie Bold in 18 point.
Typographical treasure hunts can have some marvelous surprises. One of the shops I cleared out a generation ago was a newspaper office in the small western Illinois town of Baylis, which had long since withered away after the railroad left. There was a huge Stonemetz flatbed newspaper press, a rare C&P cylinder (both of which I left), an ancient Model 8 Linotype, antique hand-lever cutter, ornate parlor stove, roll-top desk, and a safe. Bound volumes of the paper back as far as 1890. Not much type, but lots of other small treasures (ATF 1895 catalog!). One curious item I found was a heavy rectangular object encrusted with black ink. Now I had heard of cases in history where a stonecutter had made an error on a tombstone, and it ended up face-down in the local printing office to serve as an ink slab. So without thinking any more about it I threw this thing in the truck. A year or so later I came across it in the back corner of my shop and decided it was time to find out what was under all that ink. Took it outside with a can of gasoline and a wire brush, and here’s what I found:
JOHN W. Son of T.G .& S.A. MILLS DIED Nov. 21, 1851, Aged 6 y’rs 1 mo. 9 ds. It’s a small stone, only 17 inches, and it’s broken at the bottom—indicating it had most likely been in place on a grave, and then somehow got broken off and ended up in the newspaper office. The surface is depressed around the initial S. which looks to be carved a little deeper, so perhaps that was the correction of an error. Dear little John, struck down before he had a fair chance at life. We’ll never know who he was, but in this odd twist of history he is vicariously present in the pressroom at Skyline, where 19th century presses still make their sonorous rhythm.