{"id":10018,"date":"2011-09-21T02:46:21","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T01:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=10018"},"modified":"2011-10-05T03:45:35","modified_gmt":"2011-10-05T02:45:35","slug":"index-fist-or-manicule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2011\/09\/21\/index-fist-or-manicule\/","title":{"rendered":"Index, fist or manicule?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"index5.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Third revised specimen book and price list of printing material<\/a> (1887), Palmer & Rey, San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Browsing through old type foundry catalogues recently reminded me of a question posed by Callum James<\/a> a few years ago over at Front Free Endpaper, namely: what is the official description of those pointing hands favoured by pre-20th century typesetters? Writer Mark Valentine in a follow-up post<\/a> mentions a term invented by William H Sherman\u2014”manicules”\u2014since Sherman also believed that the pointing hands were nameless. That’s not quite the case, however, as these pages show, with two descriptors being used: “indexes” and “fists”. Just to confuse matters both terms are used on different pages of the same catalogue which implies that the names may have been a convenience term to avoid having to repeatedly discuss “those pointing hand things” with customers. “Manicule” seems a better choice since “index” already has a standard meaning in printing, while “fist” doesn’t suit at all.<\/p>\n

These catalogues contain many pages of similar type decorations and embellishments. All can be downloaded at the Internet Archive, just follow the links.<\/p>\n

\"index2.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Third revised specimen book and price list of printing material<\/a> (1887), Palmer & Rey, San Francisco.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"index4.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Catalogue and book of specimens of type faces and printing material and machinery<\/a> (1895), Cleveland Type Foundry.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"index1.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Copper alloy type book<\/a> (1901), Pettingill & Co., Boston.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"index3.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Copper alloy type book<\/a> (1901), Pettingill & Co., Boston.<\/em><\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> Thanks to Alan in the comments for pointing the way (so to speak) to William Sherman’s Toward a History of the Manicule<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update 2:<\/strong> See this manicule Flickr group<\/a> for many contemporary examples.<\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 Victorian typography<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Third revised specimen book and price list of printing material (1887), Palmer & Rey, San Francisco. Browsing through old type foundry catalogues recently reminded me of a question posed by Callum James a few years ago over at Front Free Endpaper, namely: what is the official description of those pointing hands favoured by pre-20th century … Continue reading “Index, fist or manicule?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[42,4,10],"tags":[771,2946,2903],"class_list":["post-10018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-design","category-typography","tag-callum-james","tag-front-free-endpaper","tag-mark-valentine"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2BA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10018\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}