Empty California Job Case

This U.S. case configuration matches that of Palmer & Rey: New Specimen Book (1884), and Hamilton Manufacturing Co: Catalog (c.1897), both illustrated in Pryor: History of the California Job Type Case (Journal of the Printing Historical Society No.7 1972). It is also in Palmer & Rey: Type Specimen Book (1892), and American Type Founders: Specimen of Wood Type and Catalogue of Printers Wood Goods and Materials (1893) and Desk Book of Type and Printing Materials (1900) and American Line Type Book (1906), and Barnhart Bros & Spindler: Pony Specimen (1893) and Book of Type Specimens No.9 (1907), and Bruce Type Foundry: Handy Book of Printing Types (c1899) and De Vinne: Practice of Typography, Modern Methods of Book Composition (1904 and 1914) and Hague: Textbook of Printing Occupations (1922) and as a Hamilton case in Long: Wood Type and Printing Collectibles (1980). Pryor dates its introduction as 1874 and states it had become the most popular U.S. typecase by the early 1890s. De Vinne refers to these cases with five upper case rows as Job or Italic, although the earlier Job and Italic cases had seven rows, for example Harpel 1870.

The upper case bay has one row of small boxes, and four rows of larger boxes (which should all be shown the same size). There is a later variation of the case, with one short row, three tall rows and one short row, as shown by Polk: The Practice of Printing (1926, 1937 and still in 1964), Whetton: Practical Printing & Binding (1946 and still in 1965), Stephenson Blake & Co: Printing Equipment (1960s), Lieberman: Printing as a Hobby (1963), Kelsey: Printers Supply Book (1969), Zapf: Standard Lay of the Case (1978), and American Printing Equipment & Supply Co: Catalog (1983). A variation with the boxes for : and ; smaller than the boxes for . and - but the x box being the same size as the q box, is shown by Henry: Printing for School and Shop (1917), Polk: Vocational Printing (1918), Hamilton Manufacturing Co: Catalog 15 (1922) and 16 (c.1930), American Type Founders: Specimen Book (1923), Atkins: Art & Practice of Printing (1932), Thompson Cabinet Co: Catalog 47 (1949), Polk & Gage: A Composition Manual (1953), and Missouri-Central Type Foundry: Price List (1959).

The early type lay can be seen as Palmer & Rey 1884, and later Hamilton 1897, the latter also showing some of the minor variations. A modern U.S. version is Polk & Gage. The empty two-third case is Two Third but there is some confusion between this and the Two Third Yankee.