Notes about Scottish Double Cases

     
                            
                  
             
                  
              
                  
             
An ordinary Scottish double case is as shown on the left, and combines a full arrangement of lower case with half an upper case. The lower case section (two bays) has 53 boxes, and the upper case (right hand) section has 49 boxes. With the advent of mechanical typesetting systems, the need for separate upper and lower cases dwindled in the twentieth century, and these double case became much more popular. They were also convenient for storing the small jobbing founts of display types, which had no small caps, accents, fractions, etc.
Although the left hand and central bays (i.e. the lower case section) remained unchanged from the above, the right hand bay (upper case section) has several variations, as shown below. The source and date of the case illustration is given below the diagram. Apart from the nine row version, the other variants are improvements by reducing the number of rows, allowing some of the remainder to become larger, to hold the capitals, with the remaining rows smaller for punctuation, numerals, ligatures, etc. These improvements are very similar to those for the English double cases.
 
Note: the diagrams are not to scale, and should all be the same overall height.
 
Seven rowNine rowSix rowFive rowFive row
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
        
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
       
       
 
 
      
 
 
      
 
 
      
       
Marr   n.d.
(Alembic 1978)
S.Blake 1922
Caslon 1925
M&R   n.d.
(Alembic 1978)
M&R   n.d.
(Alembic 1978)
Unmarked
(Alembic 1978)
S.Blake 1922
Caslon 1925


Empty cases
ie with the boxes left blank
Type layouts
ie with characters assigned to boxes
Full Index of layoutsGlossary of terms usedSources of the layoutsIntroduction
Quantities in a Fount of typeQuantities in a Case of type
Notes about Job
and Double Cases
Notes about Upper casesNotes about Lower casesAlembic home page
 

This page was written by David Bolton and last updated 7 November 2001.