Price Marker Type
by Bennett Holzworth, (8 comments)
This is an extension of my Confessions Post in the way that I am sharing another one of my resources. I have scanned an entire alphabet of vintage Price Marker hand stamps. Apparently they were for shop owners to price their merchandise. There are a few letters missing but basically the alphabet is intact. Here is the hi-res version. Use this for good design not evil.
Comments (8)
Brian Collins said:
Fantastic. A blog that does more than spew.
The characteristics of the type are a bit like a font I use now again called Oliver.
Posted on September 22, 2004
Donovan Beery said:
I always find it interesting to get this sort of ‘insight’ on other people’s processes. Over the past year I have had the opportunity to work closely with a few different designers on a project that involved sharing files, and just opening up a source file and seeing how layers are set-up, etc. differently has been an incredible learning experience. But good, not evil? I don’t know if that’s possible :)
Posted on September 22, 2004
P-Funk said:
Bennett: Although I know you’ll be pretty much in the midst of the Beirut-a-thon once I send this off, just wanted to drop a note to say “Wish I could be there” and to thank you for posting the beautiful letters on BE A - very exciting to see you reviving letterpress with such a fervor and passing along the savings to the rest of us.
You and Ade have quite a thriving little community going on here from the looks of things - nice feedback and a wide range of voices kicking notes into the fray. Glad to be one of those voices and to enjoy the festivities…
Look forward to tossing things on and off of here regularly.
-P.
Posted on September 23, 2004
Bennett said:
George,
That is great. The file downloaded just fine. I guess you are proving what Paul Arden said in It﨎 Not How Good You Are, It﨎 How Good You Want to Be. I am getting back ten fold already. This vector file will be a great resource. I don’t think it would make a great quality font either, but if someone was to make it into a font I’m sure it could be used for headlines in specific settings.
It is funny that you converted it to paths already. A couple of days ago I was thinking about creating a font out of these stamps. I was going to try to make it smooth and precise and then try to figure out fontographer, unless someone knows of a better program. Maybe someday I will try to tackle this project, but for now your file will work great. Thank you.
By the way. The case that the stamps were in was called “Price Marker” not “Price Maker”. I titled the post correctly, but not the downloadable jpeg. Now that I’m thinking about it, I think the file that is available for download is actually two or three different sets of stamps that I own. I think they are fairly common in antique stores. Obviously the all caps at the top of the file is the most unique.
Posted on September 24, 2004
Bennett said:
I found a similar set up stamps that is currently available on ebay. I’m sure this link will only be active for a few days, so check it out while it is still there. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=12&item=3749816119&rd=1
Posted on September 24, 2004
George Morgan said:
This intrigued me so much I’ve traced it as vectors if anyone’s interested: http://a.1asphost.com/irgeorge/pricemaker.svg Its hardly the most accurate and I doubt you could make a quality font from this trace but if you want to preserve that rustic look this might be what your looking for.
If your curious how I did it, it was actually quite simple. I gaussian blurred it in PS by 5px, adjusted levels to remove blurred edges. Then traced using default settings with potrace. (http://potrace.sourceforge.net)
Hopefully the .svg should be openable by everyone (using illustrator/freehand/photoshop etc.) but if you have any problems feel free to email me.
Posted on February 4, 2005
Bennett said:
If the last comment by George seems familiar, well, it is. George’s comment from last September was somehow deleted, and I just reposted it. It was the fourth comment in this thread. Sorry George.
Posted on February 4, 2005
Keith Whetstone said:
I have most of this sign marker set converted to a font and it is available here.
Posted on May 31, 2008