Earliest Documented Existence of Use of Sans Serif Font on Sheffield Maker's Stamps

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Originally Posted by spiral

Excelent post Chris!

I obviously agree sans serif existed in print much earlier,probably any English libary will have reference books that include some sans serif before c.1870

My point is so far theres no reliable dated evidence of the use of sans serif on bladed weapons before that date.

Hi Jonathan,

Thank you for the complement and the encouragement, and thank you as well for attaching the images of the aforementioned Edward Barnes & Sons knives.

Before we revisit the three knives above - which I maintain are authentic - I would like to go ahead and nip this misconception in the bud, so to speak...

I have had the good fortunate to know several knife makers well-known in the knife maker & collector community, including someone who shaped custom blades for one of the better known American knife makers before setting out on his own several decades ago. Whenever I have a question about a vintage factory or custom knife, I turn to him.

However, in the world of antique blades, there are comparably few authorities one can turn to, but at the top of a very short list, two names come to mind: Levine and Flayderman. If is from the latter's treatise on the Bowie knife, titled simply, The Bowie Knife, that this next exmaple appears.

This knife, a 19th-century folder, is significant and relevant to this discussion for two reasons: First, the use of a sans serif font on the reverse of the blade. Second, the knife is made by George Woodhead.

George Woodhead was a Sheffield cutler who opened his shop in partnership with Hartley in 1841. And while he - and later his son - continued to produce knives for the American market through 1884, by 1849 he had bought out his partner and stamped all his knives "G. Woodhead," and from 1876 to 1884, "G. Woodhead & Son."

Fortunately, this progression of ownership and the marks employed during each stage allows us to define the window of time during which a marked example was made.

The ricasso on this knife is stamped, "Woodhead and Hartley," which definitively - and conclusively - dates this early folder to between 1841 and 1849.

Thus, it is self-evident that Sheffield cutlers were using a sans serif font well before the "accepted" time.

Now, given the plethora of Sheffield cutlers, if one cutler was known to use this font ca. 1850 - over 30 years after the first commercial sans serif dye stamp was produced by a foundry, it should be reasonable to expect we would find other makers (e.g., Edward Barnes & Sons) employing the use of the font as well.

But before we revisit the knives Spiral reposted above, I will demonstrate further evidence by presenting not one, but three other Sheffield makers (not inclusive of Edward Barnes) who similarly used sans serif fonts on their blades during the mid-19th century.