X-Nico

5 unusual facts about American Type Founders


American Type Founders

The work was well done, but slow, and only four faces (Wedding Text, Thompson Quill Script, Bernhard Fashion, and T.M. Cleland’s border designs) were ever issued before Kingsley/ATF sought bankruptcy protection in 1993.

While Phinney often used free-lance designers, like Will Bradley, T.M. Cleland, Walter Dorwin Teague, Frederic Goudy, and Oz Cooper, the bulk of ATF’s catalog through the 1930s was the creation of Morris Fuller Benton.

This equipment was saved through efforts coordinated by Theo Rehak, the last person trained to run these machines at ATF's Elizabeth, New Jersey facility.

Whitin thus acquired ATF in 1957, began to manufacture a small (10 x 15” sheet size) duplicator at their Whitinsville, Massachusetts facility, and to market this under the name ATF Chief 15.

Both Chief models were made and sold in Europe by Gestetner Cyclograph Company, and were also marketed in the United States by the Itek and Ditto corporations.



see also