This entry is for the text design with upper- and lowercase
letters. For the initials, see American
Uncial Initials.
“American Uncial was designed and cut by hand by
Victor Hammer in 1943 […] at Wells College in Aurora, New York […]
Matrices were made and type was cast by the Dearborn Type foundry
in Chicago, last of the small independent founders.” [McGrew]
The design was first made available commercially by the
Klingspor foundry in Germany in 1952, who had previously released a
precursor with narrower proportions, see Hammer-Unziale
(1923). “In total, it would publish three fonts under the name
Neue Hammer-Unziale. The first, a 12 pt size, came onto
market in 1952. Victor Hammer cut all of its punches in the United
States. Klingspor published a 16 pt size four years later, also cut
by Hammer. Printers could combine those sizes with a set of 28 pt
initials, which Hammer cut himself as well. Those large initials
were essentially ornaments and were not seen by Hammer as type to
use for setting continuous texts.” [Reynolds]
Shown in a mid-1950s specimen as Neue Hammer-Unciale
and in a c. 1950s English-language Klingspor specimen as
American Uncial. A Stempel specimen presents it as an
“original Klingspor typeface” under the name Neue
Hammer-Unciale. [Klingspor-Museum]
Phototype versions by Photo-Lettering [PLINC
One-Liner], VGC (with initials and a bolder weight, see
American
Uncial Bold) [VGC More…
This entry is for the text design with upper- and lowercase letters. For the initials, see American Uncial Initials.
“American Uncial was designed and cut by hand by Victor Hammer in 1943 […] at Wells College in Aurora, New York […] Matrices were made and type was cast by the Dearborn Type foundry in Chicago, last of the small independent founders.” [McGrew]
The design was first made available commercially by the Klingspor foundry in Germany in 1952, who had previously released a precursor with narrower proportions, see Hammer-Unziale (1923). “In total, it would publish three fonts under the name Neue Hammer-Unziale. The first, a 12 pt size, came onto market in 1952. Victor Hammer cut all of its punches in the United States. Klingspor published a 16 pt size four years later, also cut by Hammer. Printers could combine those sizes with a set of 28 pt initials, which Hammer cut himself as well. Those large initials were essentially ornaments and were not seen by Hammer as type to use for setting continuous texts.” [Reynolds] Shown in a mid-1950s specimen as Neue Hammer-Unciale and in a c. 1950s English-language Klingspor specimen as American Uncial. A Stempel specimen presents it as an “original Klingspor typeface” under the name Neue Hammer-Unciale. [Klingspor-Museum]
Phototype versions by Photo-Lettering [PLINC One-Liner], VGC (with initials and a bolder weight, see American Uncial Bold) [VGC 1973], Compugraphic as Uncial [Compugraphic 1976], and Lettergraphics as Rogers Uncial. [Lettergraphics 1976]
In 1988, Linotype produced a digitization named Neue Hammer Unziale, in two numbered versions, I and II. “Neue Hammer Unziale II is basically, although not 100 percent, the lowercase letters of American Uncial [Initials] combined with the uppercase letters of Neue Hammer Unziale I.” The OpenType version includes the glyphs of II as alternates. [Linotype] See also Uncial (Agfa/Monotype) and American Uncial Bold.
