The Page type specimen book seems to have generated some awesome praise, especially from non-professional typographers. But from the embossed front cover to the last page this really is an impressive bit of marketing by a wood letter manufacturer.
Type makers need to offer their wares to printers with printed samplers showing a few arbitrary words in the various point sizes but William Page took it a step further showing his one and two-color type (in capitals only) centered inside one of the company decorative borders on each page and obviously two-color type needs to be just that: printed in two colors.
I'm assuming that the book's pages are more or less the same size as Page's sampler, the generous margins, color borders and type all come together to create a visual masterpiece (and several pages almost worth framing). The types are all named with their line-height and cost, likewise with borders which are sold in foot lengths. Page ten in the book shows the price list and classification for the number of letters in each alphabet: 2A has three cap Es and two As, 5A has six Es and five As. Oddly none of the fonts offer a dollar sign.
The book is a handsome production, printed with a 175 screen on a smooth matt art paper. Esther Smith's essay says that Page printed a thousand copies of the specimen book, incredibly few are known to exist (in past decades what printer would bother to keep a type sampler?) but this book will allow a wider readership to enjoy the art of wood type.
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